My Brother's Keeper
by sohna
Summary: When Virginia and Wolf return to the 9 Kingdoms to find out why their story was shown on TV, they must find the origins of an age old curse, which leads them to the 2nd Kingdom, Red Riding Hood III, and Wolf's erratically dangerous brother.
1. Prologue

_Author's Notes: This is the first fanfiction I ever wrote for public consumption and I didn't do it alone. It was a joint project with my friend Vivian. Although the writing is almost exclusively mine (except the prologue, one dream sequence, and all verse), the tale is mostly Viv's, as are all the new characters except Samantha (the end of the story is mine, however). The prologue and dream sequence she wrote were also re-written by me (from the first) so the entire story sounds as if it came from a single voice. We completed the story in late 2001, after nearly 2 years of writing._

* * *

PROLOGUE 

In a small clearing of the spruce and hemlock forest, stood a tiny, snug fieldstone house. At the windows hung white lace curtains, and each was further ornamented by a window box, which in late spring was now planted with yellow and purple pansies. Just beyond the side door lay a small kitchen garden, the bare earth of which had just recently been turned, and which was surrounded by a wooden rail fence with fieldstone posts. Beside one of these posts, on the side of the garden nearest the path, rose a three foot wellhead with a pump handle. Pale grey slate flagstones paved the ground just beneath the spigot, though the path between the house and garden was of pink granite gravel. Behind the house, to the north, several animal skins - three rabbit, two beaver and a deer - were stretched onto racks to dry.

Two children, a girl and boy of preschool age, were laughing and playing tag in the meadow-yard beyond the garden. A dark-haired woman parted the lace at the kitchen window, leaned her head out and smiled. Her luminous hazel eyes appeared huge in her narrow, finely boned, slightly pointed face.

"You two need to wash up and come in!" she called. "Dinner is almost ready!"

The children had been smelling their favorite, lamb, for quite a little while, but they hated to interrupt a good game. After her mother's announcement, however, the girl, who was the oldest, started eagerly for the well, her mouth already watering. But the boy hung back - after all, his sister was 'it' again, and she'd fooled him into getting in range before.

"Charlie, you better wash up or you won't get your dinner!" she called with that bossy manner common to many little girls, "Now come on!"

She pushed a lock of light brown hair behind her ear and began to pump, then bent over to wet her hands in the stream as the water splashed down onto the flat rock paving, forming a little pool. Beside her, a single black and gold butterfly fluttered down for a drink. The girl's eyes tracked it's progress in delight until it came to rest. Smiling, she caught her own rippling reflection beside it, and leaned over farther to make it look as if it were ornamenting her hair. It was then that she saw the red-coated man standing just behind her.

His hand lunged out for her as she whirled around, screaming in horror. The soldier's blood-red uniform was encrusted with filth, his slack mouth full of broken brown teeth, but it was his beady, reddish, pig-eyes that frightened her the most. Still screaming, she ran for the kitchen door just as her mother came running out. Growling low in her throat, her eyes flashing fiery yellow, she launched herself at the soldier.

Charlie hadn't seen the soldier until the man was almost upon his sister - he'd been too engrossed in watching a preying mantis he'd found devour a grasshopper. He wouldn't have even looked up at all if he hadn't heard her scream. When he did, his first instinct was to run at the man yelling "You leave my sister alone!" but he remembered in time that his daddy had taught him not to make any noise when he was stalking prey. So he said nothing, just ran as fast as his little legs could go (he thought he was faster than anybody), every bit of his attention focused on the soldier's dirty, red-coated back.

At the she-wolf's fury, the soldier had taken a step backwards. He'd come out on his own, leaving his mates to drink themselves into a stupor at the inn in the village while he singlehandedly intended to exterminate another pocket of vermin. He'd gotten quite good at recognizing them for what they were, he thought, even though they were always very careful to keep their tails hidden. He'd seen the bitch go into the butcher's shop in town - clever ruse, he thought - everyone knew wolfs always poached honest folks' livestock! But even if he hadn't been attuned to the slight wildness in her appearance which gave her away, he'd have known by watching her two skinny cubs. No human child had a nose that twitched like that. He knew very well about their sharp sense of smell and had been careful to approach the house from downwind, wanting to get in close enough to dispatch the bitch before she had a chance to call her mate. Failing that, he wanted her and her cubs already taken care of before the male arrived. From her scrawny appearance (he liked his women with a good amount of meat on their bones), he hadn't expected her to put up much of a fight. But when he saw the madness in her eyes, he realized it had been a mistake to go after one of the cubs first.

Charlie jumped on the man's back in nearly the same instant that his mother reached him from the front. The soldier didn't know it, but the boy had done him a favor. With his balance thrown off, he wheeled around unpredictably, and the mother didn't dare attack for fear of harming her son. The child clung to the man's collar and swordbelt tenaciously, until he was finally able to sink his small teeth into the back of his neck. Cursing, the soldier finally managed to pluck the boy from his back, throwing him violently down onto the stone base of the wellhead where his head struck the adjoining fencepost. Blood splattered with the impact. Some of it swirled down into the water his sister had drawn just moments earlier, and he lay still.

In that instant, the mother's features contorted as she began to change, growling and snarling, her teeth becoming sharper, her fingers lengthening into claws. Mesmerized, the soldier watched the metamorphosis in horrified awe for the few seconds it lasted, his sword barely clearing its scabbard before she was on him, biting and clawing at his flesh, seeking the vulnerable spot on the side of his throat. The weapon being useless in hand to hand combat, he let it drop, fending her off the best he could with his free left arm as he fumbled at his belt for his hunting knife. Down they fell, onto the sharp gravel and stones of the path. At last his knife came free, and he plunged it frantically up to the hilt into her stomach.

She yelped once, sharply, then convulsed. The fangs and claws receded. He yanked the blade free and shoved her still quivering form roughly off of him. Panting heavily, he stood up, nursing his ragged and bleeding left arm.

Filthy bitch, he thought. Filthy bitch!

She lay curled in a tight ball, little whimpering noises gurgling from her throat as blood foamed on her lips. He gave her a savage kick, once, then again. Filthy bitch! He was about to kick her for the third time, when a small gasp behind him made him turn.

Charlie's sister had witnessed the entire fight from just inside the kitchen door. Unable to move, she'd watched helplessly as the soldier had hurt first her brother and then her momma. She was crying and breathing very fast and shallowly, but she didn't know she was doing those things, so that when a louder sob escaped, she had no idea why the soldier suddenly stopped and looked straight at her. Her eyes, already huge and green in the chalk-white face, grew even larger with terror as he began walking towards her. She knew she should run, but couldn't make herself move. Then, as his foot reached the first step, at last she darted out the door.

He caught her easily. She shrieked once, sharply, as he grabbed her from behind by the hair. After that she couldn't seem to breathe, just looked up in terror at the knife he was holding, still wet with her mother's blood. When he cut her throat, she didn't make a sound.

Grinning with satisfaction, he watched the blood spurt from her neck, soaking her dress and dripping down onto the gravel path. Quite a bit had also splattered on his hands and onto the front of his jacket, but he only marveled, not for the first time, at the convenience of wearing red in battle. As he examined it more closely, however, it seemed to him, for just a moment, that there was suddenly much more blood than there had been. The sharp blade of bloody metal which suddenly thrust from his chest at an upwards angle registered with his brain at about the same time as the searing fire of the impalement. With a gout of blood bursting from his lips, his legs gave way and he toppled down onto the small body of the dead child he still grasped by the hair.

The mother's hand fell away from the hilt of the sword the soldier had dropped during their struggle, her strength exhausted. For a moment, she lay gasping on the path at the end of a trail of her own blood, sword arm outstretched, her breathing whistling and shallow. Then she lifted her head and made the call: a slow, thin, keening howl. It echoed back to her from the surrounding trees. Afterwards all was quiet.


	2. I  Picking Up the Pieces

I - PICKING UP THE PIECES

Virginia was thirsty. She opened her eyes into the dim grey light of predawn. Somewhere, beyond the window, far below on the street, a horn blared. The sound was so familiar it frightened her, making her wonder, for just an instant, if the whole time she'd thought she'd spent in the Nine Kingdoms had been some kind of dream from which she was only now waking. With a sudden panic, she turned to look at the man sleeping beside her, relief at finding him literally bringing tears to her eyes. Silently, she let them trickle down her nose and cheek into her ear before wiping them away. She knew she'd become almost a basket case in the last week. The sleeping man was her lifeline. If he hadn't existed . . . If she'd only imagined him . . . A fresh supply of hot tears welled up.

She sat up and dashed them away, careful not to wake the man. He'd been exhausted, she knew. For the past week, she had done little but sleep - in sleep she could lose her memory of what had happened and how. It allowed her invisibility, non-existence, a place to hide from herself. Yet there were times when she'd had to wake, and always he had been there, sitting by her side, watching. It was he who held her during those early days when she cried, and then later when she could do nothing but sit numbly still; he who insisted that she eat and bathe, and he who ultimately suggested that she return to the familiar surroundings of New York.

And he had been right. Coming home had given her some purpose; forced her to take part in life, and even if she was only going through the motions, at least she was moving under her own will. She'd laughed today for the first time in the past week, and been startled by the relief she saw in his face. Until then she hadn't realized what a strain he'd been under from worrying about her, and with that realization understood just how self-absorbing grief was. Her mother was dead. He was not - he was right here beside her and he wasn't going away. It had taken her a long time to learn that, but she had finally managed it. He gave her emotional security - something she'd lacked since her mother had walked out when she was seven, something she'd searched for ever since but didn't believe existed. And while she could technically claim she'd only been able to find it in the land of make-believe, the man who lay beside her was definitely not imaginary. He was very real and very solid. And if he was somewhat magical (at least he seemed magical to her - he would have denied it with his dying breath), then that was what had been necessary to convince her she was truly loved.

She studied his face, longing to touch it, but didn't want to wake him. He didn't look very magical at all lying there on his stomach asleep with the sheet pulled up under his arms. With his mass of almost-black hair and olive skin, he might have been any man in the City. Only he wasn't, of course. All she had to do was lift the sheet and look at what lay beneath it: Beginning in the middle of his back, just below his shoulder blades, was a line of silvery gray fur which ran down his spine, feathered out toward his sides in the small of his back, and culminated in a furry tail that right now reached almost to his knees, and for some inexplicable reason she didn't understand, varied in length according to a monthly cycle. The remainder of him appeared perfectly human. But it hadn't been his wolf-like qualities which had captured her heart. It had been more, she thought, his passion for absolutely everything, expressed not only in the unconditional love he had for her, but in a general attitude of joy of living. Even in sleep she could see that the fine lines around his eyes had all been etched from happiness and laughter. In the mental picture she carried of him he was always smiling at her with those bluish green eyes.

Quietly she got up, being as careful as she could to not jostle the bed. Wolf stirred a bit, but didn't open his eyes. Virginia studied him a moment longer, then walked into the adjoining bathroom. Indoor plumbing had been something she'd longed for during her stay in the Nine Kingdoms, but she'd never imagined anything like this. The ceiling was entirely composed of panes of glass, pitched to a central apex, like the roof of a square greenhouse. Small tropical trees literally grew out of the floor, undercarpeted with asian jasmine and mondo grass. The floor was paved with green slate flagstones, which led around a stand of trees and shrubbery to the bath, nestled into its surroundings like a spring-fed pool. The effect was enhanced by a glass wall which opened out onto a private courtyard on the roof, and by the judicious use of mirrors that made the whole area seem infinitely large.

Virginia regarded herself critically in the mirror closest to the bedroom door. Her chopped-off brown hair stuck straight up on the right side of her head where she'd laid on it. Absently, she tried to mash it down, but it stubbornly resisted her efforts. She sighed. Her hair had never been this short before in her life. Still, she wasn't sure she could stand to let it grow out, after what had happened. The sheer weight of that gypsy-cursed hair was going to haunt her for quite awhile. And, Wolf had done a pretty good job of giving her a haircut - or maybe the magic axe had something to do with it. Not to mention the shorter hair had been rather practical for a month-long trek across the countryside. She noticed as well that she now had somewhat of a tan between her ankles and mid-thigh - not exactly fit for the beach, she thought wryly - and that the scattering of freckles on her face and upper chest had grown darker and more numerous. Thank God she'd had a full bottle of sunblock in her pack, or her fair skin would've burnt to a cinder on the first day. All that exercise had really gotten her into good shape, though - probably better shape than she'd ever been in before in her life. But at that thought, her hand involuntarily pressed her camisole flat against her stomach. Was she really pregnant, she wondered? Wolf claimed she was, but she really wasn't sure if he meant he had some sixth animal sense that told him, or if he simply thought that a baby was the natural outcome of love-making. And even if it was some sixth sense, she didn't see how he could have known a mere two days after the event, although she had to admit, after counting backwards, that the timing was probably about right for it. Her period wasn't due to start until Tuesday. She'd have to wait to know till then at least.

Well, she'd gotten up originally to get herself a drink - and she was still thirsty. She turned on the swan-necked tap over the fluted deep blue porcelain sink and poured some water into the lead crystal goblet she'd left there the night before, then stared at the extravagant glass in her hand. It was typical of everything around her - there was nothing ordinary in the whole place except a few personal belongings from what she regarded as almost a previous life. It was probably the most blatant example of how magic had somehow spilled across the portal into her world, and she had been amazed to find it had been her father's doing . . .

* * *

"Ooooohhhhh . . . what is _that_?" 

"Oh, that's a picture of the Earth, taken from space."

"Really? . . . How did they get up so high?"

"They have rockets and ships that take them there. There's a model of one here. C'mon, I'll show you."

"Wait a minute. What are these? Clouds?"

"Yeah, those are clouds. And this is land, here, this is the Arabian peninsula. You can't see where we are, though, it's on the other side."

"Then all this is water? There's so much . . ."

"Uh huh."

"Cripes, its so beautiful. Don't you think so? Like looking at the moon, only more . . ."

"Oh, they've been to the moon, too."

_Silence._

"There's a model of the moon lander over there. You want to see it?"

_Silence._

"Are you all right?"

"To the moon. _Standing__on_ the moon?"

"Yes. It was a long time ago, though - before I was born. They had to wear special suits because there isn't any air. There's a whole exhibit . . . You're not all right. You want to sit down?"

_Silence._

"My God, your face is completely white. Here, sit down. You're not getting sick again on me, are you?"

"Virginia . . ."

"Would you like a drink? . . . Or, do you think you could eat something? What am I saying? When can you _not_ eat something?"

"Okay."

The front steps of the museum were drenched in the hot light of the noonday sun, though it had risen far enough in the sky to allow a reasonable amount of cooler shade under the portico.

"Are you sure you don't want to sit down again?" Virginia asked, stopping just outside the door.

"No," replied Wolf, taking a deep breath, "I'm fine now. Really. See?"

She studied his face, noting that the color had returned to his cheeks, and more importantly, that there seemed to be no sign of the terrible fever he'd run almost three weeks ago in Little Lamb Village. Inside the museum, there had been a distant look in his eyes which had reminded her too much of that.

"You said we were going to eat?" he reminded her, smiling, his eyes lively with the old merriment, clear and green. No, she thought, there was no remoteness in them now. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe it had just been the light.

"I thought we could go to the restaurant where I used to work," she suggested. "They do still owe me some money for the last few days I was there. It's a little walk, though."

"It's not that far. And they have good food."

"You've eaten there?" She was stunned.

He grinned apologetically. "It was when I was first looking for the dog Wendell. I hadn't met you yet."

"You . . . you paid for the food, didn't you?"

"Of course I paid for the food."

"Oh, okay. Sorry." She took his hand. He squeezed her hand in return and began caressing it with his thumb, but as they walked along his attention drifted away to the cloudless blue sky overhead as if he were searching for something unseen there. With growing unease, she realized the problems they'd face if he were to become really ill here: She couldn't possibly call for help without creating an uproar the moment a doctor examined him. And even if she were willing to risk that - which she otherwise certainly would be if his life were in danger - she couldn't be completely sure that any treatment he might receive wouldn't do him more harm than good. He might be used to managing on his own, no matter what (as he had insisted upon in Little Lamb Village), but she knew she'd never forgive herself if she let anything happen to him. Suppose he collapsed on her between here and the Grill? He'd looked near to fainting in the museum. It was her fault he was here at all. The only good thing about it was that at least they'd pass the portal on their way.

Once across Central Park West and beneath the canopy of trees, he looked down and her and smiled, and she breathed a little easier. Still, she knew she'd have to stop putting off what she had to get done: She had to go back to her apartment and see what Mr. Murray had done with her (and her father's) things. She was sure they'd been impounded by now, but she needed to know where and how much it would take to claim them - for some reason she thought she should know all that before finding them a place to stay for the night, though now she couldn't recall quite why. It was just that she had been dreading the confrontation with Mr. Murray. Her dread seemed trivial now, though, in comparison to the scare Wolf had just given her. She resolved to go find out about it right after lunch, then laughed at her own duplicity. The museum had been just across the street from Murray's building. They were now halfway across the Park, walking away from it. Oh, well, she had already promised Wolf some food . . .

"Oooh, I can smell it!" he exclaimed, right on cue. "Steak and chicken and mmmm . . . lamb again!"

She smiled and, realizing she'd practically been holding her breath, let it out, relieved to hear him sounding so normal.

"Is that what you had when you were here before? The lamb?"

"Oh, yes!! And it was soooo succulent! Prepared to absolute perfection! - once I'd gotten across how I wanted it prepared, that is. Of course, the fact that it was my first meal out of prison probably helped a lot, too."

His first after prison meal? The mental image that conjured up did nothing to ease her trepidation about showing up after all this time to ask for her paycheck. Oh, well . . .

"How long were you in prison, exactly?" she asked. She'd stopped caring _why_ after she'd seen what had happened in Little Lamb Village. And after she'd realized she could trust him with her heart. Whatever he'd done - if it was anything - couldn't have been much, she thought.

"About nine years, I think. Give or take a year or two."

"Nine years?!!!" She stopped and looked up into his face, outraged.

"I think that's how long it was," he said matter-of-factly. "It's kind of hard to keep track of time there."

"But nine years?! That's a huge chunk of your life! How could they? It isn't fair . . ."

"But Virginia," he said softly, caressing her face with his hand, "If I hadn't been in prison in the first place, I'd never have met you."

There was nothing she could say in reply to that - even though she remembered very well the bitter way he'd described being imprisoned when she'd first met him. Tears stung her eyes at how he could decide that the ends justified the means when the means had been so cruelly forced upon him. He brushed his fingers through her hair, then took her hand again as they resumed their walk.

As they waited to be seated, Virginia quickly scanned the visible employees. She didn't think any of them had been on duty that last night she'd spent in New York - the night she'd found Wendell - but she wasn't sure. It seemed like such a long time ago now. Wolf had already found a menu and was as engrossed in it as if it had been a best-selling thriller. Finally, Amy approached them, her expression changing to surprise when she recognized Virginia.

"Oh, my God!" she squealed. "Where have you been?! Oh, look at your hair! It looks good!" At that last remark, she'd stolen a glance at Wolf, who had barely glanced up from the menu. She bit her lip and gave Virginia a 'significant' look. "You want a table?" she asked.

"Yes, please," replied Wolf. "As quickly as possible."

She raised her eyebrows and led them to a table against the outside half-wall.

"Is Sal here?" Virginia asked her after they were seated.

"Yeah," said Amy, "But I'll warn you he's not happy with you after the way you left."

"I really didn't expect him to be."

"Candy will be glad to know you're okay, though. She was really afraid something had happened to you."

Wolf closed his menu and looked up expectantly.

"Um, why don't we go ahead and order and then I can go and talk to Sal while we're waiting," said Virginia.

They did, with Virginia including an appetizer of buffalo wings for Wolf to munch on while she was gone. Then she steeled herself for the confrontation with Sal.

"I'll be back in a minute," she told Wolf.

"You want me to come with you?" he asked.

"No. Thanks. It's okay. It shouldn't take very long."

"Well, well," began Sal, when she'd opened the door to his office. He eyed her up and down. "I knew you'd come crawling back here eventually . . ."

"I came to pick up my last paycheck," she said briskly.

He scowled. "You realize your position has already been filled."

Sal had used to intimidate her, but now she was surprised to find that he had no power over her whatsoever.

"Yes, I assumed that it would be," she agreed. "I only came for my paycheck."

He yanked open a drawer, withdrew an envelope and threw it forcefully down on the desk in front of her.

"Here you go," he said.

"Thanks," she said as she picked it up, tore it open and verified the amount. Truthfully, she couldn't even remember exactly how many hours she'd worked, but wasn't about to let Sal know it.

As she turned to leave, he spat, "Oh, and don't bother using me as a reference when you want another job somewhere."

She closed the door behind her and sighed. One confrontation down, one to go. She looked up just as Candy came in through the back door.

"Virginia!" cried the blonde, running over and throwing her arms around her. "Oh, I was _so_ worried about you - oh, gee, you got your hair cut, it's cute! - where _were_ you?!"

"Oh . . . I, um . . . had to go to my mother's funeral," she said, hoping that would explain her absence well enough.

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry."

"Oh, my God," said Amy, behind her. "Did you tell that to Sal? He might . . ."

"No," said Virginia, cutting her off. "Look, thanks, but I really don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Oh. Okay," Amy replied. Then, after a moment of awkward silence, she added, "So , who is _he_?"

"What?" asked Candy, confused.

"She came in with this drop dead gorgeous guy," explained Amy. "So, who is he?" she repeated.

Virginia smiled in spite of herself.

"Oh, he's my fiancé," she said.

They both stared at her for a moment, speechless.

"No kidding," Candy said finally.

"That was fast," put in Amy with a grin. She reached for Virginia's left hand. "Is this it?" she asked, indicating the ring.

Slowly, the ring's face rose to the surface of the pearl as it woke up. It smiled.

Virginia froze, then slowly let her breath out, reminding herself that no one besides her and Wolf could see that, or hear the ring sing. The two girls were bending over it in awe, regardless.

"Yeah," she said.

"A pearl, huh?" asked Candy. "Is it real or cultured?"

"Real," replied Virginia immediately. She was afraid she knew where this was going, and surprised herself by getting annoyed at it. Though she loved Wolf desperately, the idea of marriage terrified her, and the ring had seemed to symbolize the feelings she had of being trapped into it: The first time he'd tried to give it to her, she'd refused and nearly lost him forever. The second time, it had appeared almost by magic (well, it _was_ a magic ring), and he had then insisted that she had to accept it because she was pregnant. His reasoning had irked her, but she had no intention of making the same mistake twice and losing him again, so she'd accepted it, hoping fervently that he was wrong about her condition. If she did get married, she wanted to be sure it was because she wanted to, not because outside circumstances forced her into it. The ring itself she didn't really like at all, and only wore to please him, so what she knew Candy was going to say shouldn't have bothered her. But it did.

"It sure is an odd color - but it's nice and all that!" the girl said, examining it closely, "But I'd want a diamond if it was me."

The ring itself hadn't stopped smiling, but still managed to convey what it must have felt to Virginia by its expression. Then, it raised it's sweet voice and sang,

"_Oh my what a sight!_

_That girl is such a dreadful fright._

_Not as pretty as a rose -_

_She's got a booger in her nose."_

Virginia gasped. She couldn't help it. It took every ounce of will she had to force herself to cough instead of laugh.

"Are you okay?" asked Amy. Candy looked up at the same time, and Virginia couldn't help but notice that the ring was right. She coughed harder and then it got easier because she really did start to cough.

"Sorry," she finally explained, gasping, "Allergies."

Amy nodded sympathetically, then turned to Candy.

"Well?" she asked expectantly. "Remember what you said you'd do if Virginia came back?"

Virginia only half paid attention to what they were saying. Her mind was too busy wondering both what had gotten into her ring.

" . . . I know I should _never_ have given your address to that guy, but I just couldn't help it," Candy was saying. "This sounds so stupid, but he was just so_incredibly_ sexy, I think I would have done anything he asked! I felt terrible when you didn't come in afterwards - I was sure something awful had happened to you! I never had a guy have that much of an effect on me . . ." Her words suddenly cut off and her mouth formed into an 'o', her face gone white, as she stared past Virginia's left shoulder.

For a brief moment Virginia wondered if Candy were going to faint. Then it hit her who Candy's incredibly sexy guy was. She didn't even need Amy's "Oh, there he is," to confirm that Wolf had walked up behind her. Still, her eyes remained transfixed on Candy, who had by now flushed bright red and started to hyperventilate. The booger wiggled up and down. It was the last straw. Virginia's control gone, she doubled over in a fit of laughter, barely able to breathe. Tears came to her eyes and ran freely down her face. She was aware of Wolf holding onto her, and could feel the concern radiating from him. She knew she probably looked as if she were in pain.

_Oh, no, he probably thinks I'm having a miscarriage!_ she thought. She tried to pat him on the arm in reassurance, finally managing to gasp, "I'm _laughing_!"

He backed away a couple of inches and cupped his hands to her face, tilting it up to search her eyes, as he'd done when he'd rescued her from the swamp that day. The relief in his face at what he found was almost as great. At first she thought he had simply been glad she was okay. But it lasted - that same look of happy relief - all through their meal, whenever his eyes rested on her, growing more relaxed as time passed, until she realized that something else had eased his mind: he had seen her laugh for the first time since her mother had died. And when she'd told him what the ring had said, he'd even confirmed it - after nearly choking on his food, of course.

"Well, you probably needed a good, hard laugh," he'd told her, after he'd finally managed to swallow. "I guess the ring knew that. Don't you feel a little better?"

She'd had to admit that she did - as if there had been a thick rope tied around her ribcage that had finally snapped. Only she still felt a little bad about Candy: When she'd finally caught her breath, she'd noticed that Amy had been laughing almost as hard, since it hadn't taken her long to figure out that Candy must have been talking about Wolf, either. But Candy herself was nowhere to be found, and Virginia had known that she must have run away, mortified. She resolved to return later to patch things up.

They walked out from the cover of the trees and the apartment building loomed before them, a squat, multi-tiered tower of dull pale beige across the street. It looked no different than it ever had, Virginia thought, only wasn't her home any more. She took a deep breath and let it out.

"I'm not looking forward to this," she said, and looked up at her companion.

Wolf squeezed her hand, but didn't look back at her. Instead, he seemed to be surveying their destination with avid curiosity and what she thought might even be . . . cautious expectation?

"Oh, it might not be so bad," he said, though the tone of his voice indicated that it could be very bad indeed. Uncertain what to make of his reaction, she shrugged, puzzled, and started across the street.

They made it to the elevator without incident. The doors closed and the car lurched on its way, lights flickering. Wolf wrinkled his nose. "Still smells a little like Troll," he commented, making her wonder how he could possibly smell that over the stench of burnt plastic and overheated wiring. The thing still did not operate properly. Murray couldn't blame _this_ on her father - or could he, she wondered, by blaming it on his absence? In any case, she had already resolved to try her own door first before knocking on Murray's.

The elevator ground to a halt with a screeching whine and the doors opened. The first thing Virginia noticed was that they'd stopped a good six inches short of the floor. The second thing she noticed was Murray standing in front of the door to her apartment. Her mouth went dry and she felt the blood drain from her face, but she forced herself to take a step forward. This was what she'd come for, after all. She might as well get it over with.

She'd taken about three steps out of the elevator before he finally recognized her.

"Miss Lewis!" he cried happily, beaming. "You're back!" After this greeting, his attention immediately shifted to any and all points beyond her. "Is your father coming along shortly, then?" he inquired eagerly.

"No," she began, bewildered by his reaction. He'd always sneered at her before while gleefully snatching at every opportunity to reprimand her dad. She shot a glance at Wolf, who was watching the scene with bemused interest. Until he noticed her staring at him, that is. Then he merely looked guilty. It was obvious that he knew something about this and he was going to have quite a bit of explaining to do, she thought, but it would have to wait, because Murray had obviously paid no attention to what she had said. He was still searching the space behind her as if he expected her father to appear in a puff of smoke any second.

"Mr. Murray!" she cried, planting herself firmly in front of him and looking him squarely in the eye (which was no easy task, considering his eyes refused to rest). "My father is NOT coming back today!" she shouted, "Do you understand? He's NOT coming back!"

It took a couple of moments, but finally her words managed to register. At least his eyes finally focused on her, she thought.

"Oh," he said, crestfallen. "We had so hoped . . . Have you any idea when he might be arriving?" He was near to whining.

Virginia was becoming exasperated. "No," she began, but Wolf suddenly cut her off.

"Mrs. Lewis has just passed away," he said, in the somber tones of a funeral director. "Mr. Lewis has been obligated to remain in order to tidy up her affairs."

For just a moment, Virginia saw the old Murray as he eyed Wolf, whom he apparently considered a cretin intruding into their conversation. She quickly stepped in.

"Oh, Mr. Murray, I'd like you to meet my fiancé, Mr. Wolf," she said. Murray looked blankly at her for a moment, then his entire attitude abruptly changed, as if a switch had been thrown. He smiled at Wolf and shook his hand, but maddeningly to Virginia, went on talking about her father.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't realize that there _was_ a Mrs. Lewis. At least not any more. Uh, that is . . ." he floundered for the words, apparently realizing he'd committed some sort of social blunder. Wolf stepped up, put his arm around Murray's shoulders and led him a few steps away from Virginia.

"Mrs. Lewis had been institutionalized," he explained, his voice still sepulchral. His back was turned and he was speaking very quietly, but Virginia could still understand what he was saying. She wondered idly if he thought she couldn't.

"Talking about it upsets my fiancé dreadfully, so it's probably best if we don't discuss it," he continued. "I'm sure that's what Mr. Lewis would want. Especially considering she's his _only_ child."

She saw Murray nod emphatically in understanding. Then he turned and took her hand.

"My dear," he purred, "If there's _anything_ I can do . . ."

Virginia saw her chance and leaped at it.

"Actually, I came to find out about the apartment . . ." she began hopefully.

"Oh, dear me!" he exclaimed, interrupting her. "I had completely forgotten the reason I was standing post here in the first place!"

"Standing post?"

"Yes, yes! You see, the building was without a janitor and some of the tenants were beginning to complain! And, well, of course, this apartment is part of the compensation for that job. So, naturally, when we hired the new man, he needed to be able to live here, and, well . . ."

"That's all right," she found herself saying, "I really rather expected that. So if you could just tell me where . . ."

"But the place was _entirely_ unsuitable for your father anyway," he went on as if she hadn't spoken. "And while I tried my best to find appropriate lodgings for him here, I'm afraid it simply wouldn't have worked out. You see, far too many of these tenants are insufferable snobs who think of your father as nothing but a former _servant_." He spat the word out as if it tasted bad. "So I'm afraid I had no choice but to relocate him elsewhere. We've provided a penthouse for him on Fifth Avenue."

Virginia's jaw dropped. "A penthouse on Fifth Avenue?" she repeated dully.

"Yes. So terribly far away, but there was no help for it," he sighed.

Virginia crossed the street once more, numbly, clutching the paper on which Murray had hastily scribbled the address. She could tell by the number that it also faced Central Park. They were expected - Murray had called ahead on his cell phone to whoever it was that was standing post in the penthouse. It had taken only a minimum of coaxing by Wolf to get Murray to offer it to her.

"Since I'm not from this city," he'd explained, "Virginia has no place to stay. I'm sure her father would want her to have every possible luxury . . ." It wasn't an argument that Murray, in his present state, could withstand. Still, he'd insisted that he couldn't take them there himself - he'd need to be on hand in case Mr. Lewis returned unexpectedly. So he'd given her the address and made the call.

Once beneath the cooler shade of the trees, however, her mind cleared enough for her to remember that Wolf had obviously known something about the incident beforehand. She pulled on his hand and led him to a nearby bench.

"Are you tired, Virginia?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her welfare. His big green eyes looked at her as they usually did - as if she were the only other person on the planet. She had wanted to sound severe. It wasn't going to be possible.

"No, Wolf," she sighed. "I just . . ."

He tilted his head, waiting quietly for her to go on speaking.

"I just got the impression that you knew something about what that was all about back there," she said, thinking, _oh, yeah, that was so clear of me_. "With Mr. Murray," she continued, giving the paper in her hand a feeble shake. "This."

She'd half expected him to claim he had no idea what she was talking about - most guys would, she knew. But Wolf was not most guys. He looked guiltily away.

"Well?" she asked, trying to sound crisp and in control. The word came out soft and gentle instead. She couldn't help it. His reaction made her want to hug the answers out of him. "What's going on?" she prompted.

"I don't know, exactly," he replied uncomfortably.

"Wolf," she growled. If he was going to start doing that, she could certainly become serious, and quickly.

"I don't!" he insisted. "Really! The exact things that happened were entirely up to Tony."

"Dad?"

He nodded and scratched his temple nervously.

"All right," she said carefully. "Just tell me what _you_ had to do with it."

"I . . . I gave him a dragon dung bean."

"A what?"

"A dragon dung bean. It's a magic bean. You get six wishes."

"Six wishes?"

He nodded again.

"Just from owning this bean?"

"Oh, no. You have to swallow it."

"And Dad swallowed it?" she asked incredulously.

"I presume so," he said, scratching at his temple again. "I'd always thought that was why he could understand Prince Wendell - he'd used one of the wishes for that."

An image popped into her head of her father, just before they passed through the portal into the Nine Kingdoms, saying "Watch this!" and then wishing he could understand everything the dog said. She'd thought he was nuts at the time. But they'd been separated almost immediately, and by the time she'd found him again, she'd grown so accustomed to the strange happenings there that it never occurred to her to question his ability.

"Am I right?" he asked.

She nodded absently, considering, then said, "Where did you get it?"

"Um . . . I found it in my pocket."

"What?" She looked at him skeptically.

"No, really, I did," he insisted. "The mirror was in the basement of the prison. When I stepped through it that was in my pocket."

"It really grants six wishes?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I guess he must have used one on that Murray guy somehow. He was acting very strangely."

"You can say that again," she agreed. "Six wishes?" The idea was intriguing.

"Yes . . . Oh, no, Virginia, no, its not a good thing."

"But you gave one to Dad."

He looked instantly guilty again, like a little boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar, she thought.

"Um . . . oh . . . but that was before I met you," he declared, as if that explained everything.

"And what exactly were you like before you met me?" she asked, primarily to keep him talking, expecting him to smile that sheepish grin he had.

His reaction surprised her - he looked abruptly away as if the answer pained him.

"What?" she asked softly. Had he really been in the prison for something serious after all, she wondered?

"Virginia . . ." His tone was pleading.

"No," she said, "Tell me." If there was something bad in his past she wanted to know it now.

"I . . . um . . ." he started, then bit his lip. He took a deep breath and glanced at her remorsefully, then away. "I didn't used to care what I did to people - non-wolfs - what happened to them," he said quietly. "I don't mean I went around killing anybody or anything - I just didn't care how mean I was to them in general or what kind of tricks I played on them because I knew they didn't care about me." He slowly took another deep breath, glancing at her as if he half expected to be hit.

She thought for a moment. "Like you did to my grandmother?" she finally asked.

He closed his eyes and nodded, exhaling in a quiet, self-mocking chuckle.

"So is that what you were really in prison for?" she asked.

He looked up.

"No," he said. "I was in prison for eating almost a whole herd of sheep."

She couldn't stop herself from laughing a little as she wondered for a fleeting moment if he'd actually been guilty, then quickly concluded it was certainly possible - after all, he had eaten an entire henhouse full of chickens. And she couldn't deny that he'd been terrorizing her grandmother when they'd met - and been apparently going to attack Virginia herself with a meat cleaver. But since then she'd seen him play a very dangerous game to both break the curse on King Wendell and save two hundred people from being poisoned to death. Not to mention the several times he'd actually saved _her_life.

He was still regarding her hesitantly, a look of complete misery on his face. She really couldn't stand it - she reached over and hugged him, hard. Beneath her hands she felt the tension go out of him as he drew her closer; heard it also in the ragged sigh he let escape. She couldn't believe how much she loved him. She'd thought once that she could never possibly trust anyone with her whole heart, and now here she was with Wolf, whom she'd known for not quite six weeks. But strangely, the length of time didn't matter at all - while she knew she'd had an existence before they'd met, she could no longer even imagine herself having ever been without him. It didn't matter in the least what he might have done in that same unfathomable past. She loved him now. But she did have to admit it would be difficult for her grandmother to see it that way. Fortunately that was something she didn't have to worry about just yet. She did still have to find out what was wrong with the Murrays, though.

She looked up at Wolf, smiled, brushed the hair out of his eyes, and sighed. "Okay, so Dad must have made six wishes," she began. "And one of them involved the Murrays. Why exactly aren't the wishes a good thing?"

He held her close for a moment more before answering, though he didn't let her go even then.

"Because dragon magic is so unpredictable," he explained softly. "Most of the time the wishes backfire - they only work the way you'd want them to in a very few instances."

"Like Dad wishing he could talk to Wendell?"

"Yeah, that was one of the few times."

"And whatever he did to the Murrays seems to be working . . ."

"Well, it's hard to say. We don't know exactly what he wished for. What terms and conditions he may have set up."

"Terms and conditions? You make it sound like a contract."

"Oh, it is."

The words sent a chill down her spine. What, exactly, had her father gotten into? She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know - no, she knew she didn't want to know - but sticking her head in the sand wouldn't make whatever he had done go away. She took a deep breath.

"What kind of a contract?" she asked. The words stuck in her throat but she managed to get them out. "Does Dad owe anybody or anything something for those wishes now?"

"Oh, no," said Wolf, understanding her immediately. "Nothing like that. I only meant the wishes are granted to the exact letter of the wish as stated. Never to the spirit of the wish. Well, hardly ever, at least. And there's absolutely no way to tell beforehand whether or not you'll be pleased with the results. In fact, it's almost like they have their own agenda."

She thought for a moment.

"Well," she hypothesized, "Maybe if you were very, very careful about how you stated the wish? So there wasn't any room for doubt about what you wanted?"

"People have tried that. It doesn't do any good."

"But . . ."

"Virginia . . ." Where he held her, she felt the pressure from his arms increase and his hands tighten. "You don't want to swallow one. Even if it worked right, dragon magic is _very_ powerful. Too powerful, really, for people to handle - it's a terrible strain on their systems."

She gave him what she called 'the look,' figuring he was simply being protective because she was pregnant. Not that, in this kind of instance, he shouldn't be if it turned out that she really was . . .

He reacted to her stare by looking her straight in the eyes and saying, "It makes you throw up for a minimum of three hours right after you swallow it."

_Oh_, she thought. _Nevermind_.

Out loud, she said, "Did you tell Dad this?"

More guilt. _Apparently not. Time to change the subject_, she thought._ Sort of._

"You keep saying dragon magic. What does it have to do with dragons?"

He relaxed a bit.

"It's a dragon dung bean," he told her. "There's a particular kind of plant that dragons like to eat, only they can't digest the seeds."

_He can't mean what I think he means_, she thought.

"I don't know how it works or anything," he went on, "But somehow, on the way through the dragon's system, the seeds pick up some of the magic from . . ."

"Never mind," she said. "I don't want to know."

Although she already did.

* * *

Mrs. Murray was waiting for them at the entrance to the building. She was a tall, attractive blonde at least fifteen years younger than her husband. Virginia had always wondered if their marriage had been a 'society alliance,' and if that was that kind of thing her mother had rebelled against when she'd run off and eloped with her father. 

_Well, I'll never know now_, she thought, wishing she hadn't recalled that comparison as she fought a sudden rush of tears.

"Miss Lewis!" Mrs. Murray exclaimed, rushing up to them. "How delightful to see you again!"

The bizarre concept of Mrs. Murray being delighted to see her immediately drove all thoughts of her mother out of Virginia's head. She was too accustomed to being looked down upon from the woman's lofty heights, both literally and figuratively.

"Hello, Mrs. Murray," she said tentatively.

"Oh, you _must_ call me Linda," said the woman. "It just wouldn't do for you to refer to me in such a formal manner. And is this your fiancé, Mr. Wolfe?"

"Yes, he is."

Wolf smiled and held out his hand. Linda looked somewhat scandalized, but accepted his hand and shook it, with a single, subservient nod of her head.

"It's so terribly disappointing that Mr. Lewis couldn't have joined you as well," she said, returning her attention to Virginia, "But Bob explained the circumstances. You have our deepest sympathy." She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her eyes searching the space behind them, then asked hopefully, "He hasn't managed to join you since you spoke with Bob, by any chance, has he?"

"No, sorry, he hasn't," Virginia told her, then found she had to get right in the woman's face and tell her again, as she had with Murray. What in the world had her father actually wished for?

But Linda was quite helpful after that - introducing them to the doorman, providing them both with keys, and explaining the operation of the elevator. Her ingenious introduction to the building, uttered in a lobby containing several apparently quite rich tenants, of "This place is _so_ much better cared for than _our_building!" nearly made her choke.

Once inside the penthouse, however, Virginia was somewhat disconcerted to find six more people waiting for them. _Where are they coming from?_ she wondered. Linda introduced them quickly: Justine, Larry, Edna, Joe, Mary, and Roger. Oh, yeah, Virginia thought, she'd remember_ that._ One of them (was it Justine?) again asked if she was sure her father hadn't been able to join her yet. But even though she answered no, although they all seemed terribly disappointed, they treated her and Wolf with excruciating politeness.

"We took the liberty of having the apartment decorated for Mr. Lewis," explained Linda, "So he'd have an appropriately elegant place to come home to. It's _Sidney Vale!_" - she gestured expansively, making Virginia wonder for a moment if someone else was going to appear - "He's the absolute _rage_ these days, but if Mr. Lewis is not happy with the result, of course everything can be redone immediately."

Virginia noted that Sidney Vale was extremely partial to potted plants and the color white.

"Um, did you get rid of all our other stuff?" she asked.

"Oh, heavens, no," was the reply. "It wouldn't be our place to do that. All that junk is in the storage room in the basement."

Virginia nodded.

"But - and I hope you don't mind us taking the liberty - we did transfer all the personal belongings into the new pieces," Linda went on. "And you'll find the clothes in the closets. We understand that it's simply not possible to purchase a gentleman's wardrobe without a proper fitting."

She continued on introducing them to the penthouse, taking them on a detailed tour of every room, replete with testimonials from the staff about how they took so much pride in keeping everything spotless and in perfect operating condition. Eventually they got to the kitchen.

"Ohhhh . . ." squealed Wolf softly, unable to completely contain himself at the sight. "Huff, puff!"

Virginia squeezed his hand and elbowed him in the ribs. He looked at her with a pained expression.

The room was outfitted in stainless steel for professional food service, complete with restaurant-sized appliances, including a walk-in refrigerator. Two of the staff, a man and a woman - Virginia could no longer even recall what names Linda had reeled off, much less who these two in particular were - had donned aprons and were waiting there expectantly.

"We've stocked all the ingredients for the most popular dishes," said the man

"What would you like us to prepare for you?" asked the woman.

"Rack of lamb, delicately seasoned with fresh rosemary and garlic, and then flashed in a _very_ hot fire for _exactly_ seven seconds," ordered Wolf before Virginia could stop him.

"_Wolf!!!!_" she exclaimed.

"Make sure the time is _precisely_ accurate," he added.

"_You just ate!_"

He looked at her, surprised.

"But Virginia, that was nearly two hours ago," he told her.

It was too late to stop them, anyway, she realized. At his first words, they'd bounded into action. _At least he likes his meat rare, so it won't take very long to cook_, she thought.

They spent the remainder of the time before the meal being shown the Master's bedroom, briefly, and then Virginia's. The youngest of the female staff smiled and curtseyed to her.

"I'm going to be your personal maid," she announced.

"Um . . . that's very sweet of you but I really don't need a personal maid," said Virginia. She'd had one forced on her at Wendell's palace. Fortunately, the girl, Emma, had understood, but they'd still had to spend some time arranging it so that she wouldn't get in trouble for neglecting her duties. Here she had no intention of going along with such a thing at all, as she was certain this one would be less accommodating.

"Oh, the daughter of Mr. Lewis should not be without one," the girl insisted, confirming her worst fears.

"I don't want one," repeated Virginia more firmly.

"That is _very_ irresponsible!" scolded the girl. "It doesn't matter what you do or don't want. It's what's best for Mr. Lewis that matters!" Her voice softened a bit as she continued, "We do have someone to act as valet for your fiancé. ------ Roger!!!!" she called.

"NO!" cried Wolf. "No, I don't want a valet, either!"

A young man appeared.

"At your service, sir," he said.

"Oh, um . . . thank you, but . . . I don't really need a valet!" said Wolf, glancing helplessly at Virginia. "I didn't even bring a change of clothes!"

Roger appeared slightly shocked by the statement, but quickly recovered.

"That's all right, sir," he said, "I'd be honored to call the tailor for you. I'm certain he could be here just after your meal to take your measurements."

Wolf looked absolutely aghast, his mouth open, his eyes huge and round. Virginia bit her lip, imagining what the tailor would make of his tail: _A little extra room here, a little tuck over there . . ._ In a way he sort of deserved it, she thought - he'd been the one to provide her father with the magic bean (she refused to even think about what it could be called otherwise), so it seemed only right that he should have to suffer some of the consequences. The whole scene would have been laughable except that she was in virtually the same predicament. And it would do neither of them good in the long run for Wolf to be discovered for what he was. She could just envision the headlines of the _Enquirer_ or the _Star: Wolf-Man Discovered in New York, Has Furry Tail!_ No, she thought, she had to put a stop to this, fast.

"Excuse me!" she said loudly, to get their attention. "Did my father specifically state that my fiancé or I were to have personal servants?"

Abruptly, the girl paused in a glassy-eyed stare, though only for a moment. Finally she said, "No, but . . ."

"No buts!" Virginia insisted. "If my father insists on us having personal servants when he returns, then we will be sure to ask for the two of you. But until then, we _do not want_ servants! Is that clear?"

"Well . . ."

"Dismissed!" she ordered, thinking _God, I hope this works._

Fortunately, it did. But the same tactics did not work so well when it came time for Virginia to shoo them all out of the apartment.

"Oh, but we have to keep everything spotless for when Mr. Lewis returns!" Linda informed them.

Virginia had rather expected something like this, the way they'd all hovered over her and Wolf while he'd eaten the lamb he'd asked for. Every time one of them would pick up a glass, someone would wipe away the moisture it left on the table, and every time Wolf put down his knife, someone would take it away and give him a clean one. She'd half expected them to start washing his plate before he'd finished eating. As it was, they ran the vacuum under the table the moment the dishes had been cleared, even though neither of them had dropped anything, bumping aside their feet in their enthusiasm.

Finally, though, she managed to convince them that her father wouldn't be returning for at least a week, so they could come back then and clean up any mess she and Wolf might make. She'd rather have had them come back when she called them, but it was hard enough getting Linda to agree to the week.

Virginia closed the door behind them, sighed heavily and leaned her head against it. It was only late afternoon and already she felt exhausted. She bit her lip and fastened the locks quickly, although she figured it would do little good against the Murrays, then turned around. Wolf was standing just behind her, closer than she'd thought. He was smiling at her with that private, slightly shy smile she'd first seen in the swamp. As he touched her face, she decided that she wasn't really all that tired after all.

* * *

Wolf smelled bacon. It hadn't started to cook yet, but the smoky odor was unmistakable. He'd been lying awake in bed with his eyes closed ever since Virginia had gotten up to go to the bathroom. He'd mentally followed her, tracking her progress by the sounds she was making, but he hadn't noticed when she'd gone into the kitchen. Had he dozed off without realizing it? He smiled as he remembered how careful she'd been to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake him. And now she was making him a surprise breakfast! His mouth watered in anticipation. He'd had another activity in mind, but it could wait until they'd eaten. 

She was walking back over to the bed now. Odd how it sounded like she'd just come out of the bathroom, he thought, but the door to that was pretty close to the door to the bedroom they were in, so maybe he just couldn't tell the difference - he'd only been here one day, after all. Quietly, softly - _oh, yes, so __**soft**__ly_ - she climbed back onto the bed. Any moment she would wake him and he would see her smiling . . .

But she only laid back down. Puzzled at this unexpected turn of events, he opened his eyes. She was lying on her side, facing him, apparently watching him sleep. Part of him - well, most of him - was both flattered and exhilarated. He'd watched her sleep countless times, most of them on their journey when he hadn't been sure if she was even capable of returning his love, until he'd memorized every freckle on her beautiful face. The last ten days - since she'd told him she loved him - had been an absolute joy, marred only by her sorrow and grief over the circumstances surrounding her mother's death. But that would pass, he knew. Their love would last forever:_Yes, happily ever after, that's for us!_ he thought with amazed delight. A small part of him, however, thought it odd that Virginia didn't seem to be aware of the food smells coming from the kitchen.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said softly, her voice almost a whisper, "I didn't mean to wake you."

No, she really didn't seem to know about the food at all. He sat up. She looked up at him curiously, and sat up herself. He drew her to him involuntarily - it was a gesture he could only have stopped with an extreme act of will - and put one finger to his lips, listening. Startled, her intensely blue eyes grew wide, and she turned her head to look toward the kitchen, but made no sound. Yes, he thought, he could detect some vague, almost indistinguishable clatter from that direction. Virginia turned back to him and shook her head to indicate that she hadn't heard anything, but he put his finger back to his lips and nodded toward the door with what he hoped was a meaningful look. She nodded back to him - if he'd heard something, that was apparently good enough for her. Silently, he retrieved his trousers from the floor and began to put them on. There was a man's robe handy - obviously intended for Tony, and therefore long enough to cover his tail at any time of the month - which would've been quicker to get into, but he wasn't quite sure exactly who or what he was going to meet. He could move a lot faster in the trousers.

He crept quietly towards the door while pulling on his undershirt, Virginia just behind him. Soundlessly, he turned the handle and peered out, but saw nothing besides the bare hallway and ludicrous all-white furnishings of the main living area just visible through an arched opening ahead and to his left. Part of his mind drifted off onto a tangent, thinking they'd have to find someplace else to live before the baby came - he couldn't imagine children growing up in this spotlessly white environment where no dirt was ever permitted, with someone constantly cleaning up at their heels. This errant thought, however, did not in the least interfere with his concentration as he headed cautiously down the hall to the kitchen door. He waited there silently until Virginia was just behind him, then threw the door open with such force that it banged against the inside wall and bounced back so hard he knocked it aside again on his way in.

Justine, one of the cooks who'd helped fix the rack of lamb for him yesterday, nearly dropped the carton of eggs she was holding as he sprang into the room, teeth bared, a growl growing in his throat. Virginia pushed past him, her hand on his arm.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"F. . . fix . . . fixing breakfast," stammered Justine in a small, scared voice. Her eyes stared at him in alarm, like a frightened doe's. _No!! No, not a good comparison!_ he thought. _Not at all! Stop thinking that!_ He needed to calm down. _Now._ Desperately he concentrated on how soft and cool Virginia's hand felt on his skin as he wondered exactly why he had reacted the way he had. There was no reason for it at all. _Calm down!_ Slowly he got his breathing under control, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. It had very obviously been only a member of the Murray family that had let themselves in to prepare breakfast. All the evidence had pointed to it: they had keys, they were inclined to that kind of servitude, and he'd definitely smelled and heard breakfast being prepared. Yet he had reacted as though their lives were being threatened. It made no sense - it was the way he might have behaved during full moon, only right now the moon was not quite to first quarter - and he had no idea what it was that had set him off.

Virginia was arguing with Justine about their agreement to be left alone for a week.

"Oh, but surely you wanted to eat?" the woman insisted.

"We like to prepare our own food," replied Virginia coldly. She turned to look at Wolf. "Don't we?" she said, obviously expecting him to confirm her statement. But in her eyes he saw the unasked question: _What's gotten into you?_

"Yes," he said, amazed that his voice sounded so normal. But then he felt perfectly all right now, the only residual effect a slight clamminess to his skin, left over from having briefly broken into a sweat. "Sorry I scared you like that," he added quietly, "I thought someone had broken in."

The excuse sounded lame, he thought, but he was still too confused at the moment to think up something better. Fortunately, she seemed to believe it.

"And yes, I really enjoy preparing food," he continued. "I especially like to make up my own recipes for marinading meats."

"Oh," replied the cook. She looked terribly disappointed.

Virginia shot him a curious glance at his last statement.

"Yes, and I enjoy it too," she said, then relenting, went on, "But you're here now, so you may as well finish fixing breakfast. Just from now on, let us do it, okay? And I mean all meals, not _only_ breakfast. When Dad comes back, you can come cook for him."

As might be expected, at the mention of Tony, Justine had agreed immediately and the two of them headed for the terrace, where the food was to be served. But just outside the kitchen, after the door had shut behind them, Virginia stopped him.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Concern for him radiated from her.

He sighed. He didn't want her to worry, but then he didn't want to lie to her, either.

"I don't know," he said truthfully. The answer upset her as he knew it would. She studied him for a moment, then took his hand and led him into the bedroom, closed the door behind them and sat him down on the bed.

"Wolf, you said that once a month, you . . ." she suggested, but he cut her off immediately.

"No, it's not that. It's not time yet."

"I didn't think so." She paused for a few seconds, then asked, "Is what happened in the museum yesterday a part of this?"

He had to think for a minute to remember what she was talking about. When he finally did, he started to laugh.

"No," he said, "No, that was just my overactive imagination." _Wasn't it?_

She leaned over and put her arms around him, hugging him hard. He lost himself for a moment in the ecstacy of her closeness, the feel of her and her scent all around him, as he gathered her in. Still in his embrace, she looked up.

"I've been thinking," she said, "I really don't know what I'd do if something happened to you here - if you got sick or something. Maybe we should go back to the Fourth Kingdom."

"No." He was definitely not doing that. Not when Virginia was doing so well here - and she sure didn't need to go back to Wendell's castle and be constantly reminded of her mother's death. Whatever it was that was happening to him, it wasn't as bad as the full moon, and he thought he could even handle that without the pressure the queen had put him under. He had at least been able to control it once - long ago, before he went to prison (why bother in a solitary locked cell?) - except for the few times he'd been in unbearably tempting situations. But he'd never been prone to these kinds of episodes between full moons, either, so he knew he couldn't really be sure. And he knew that if he were in Virginia's position, he'd be worried about him. Still, he had ten days, unless whatever it was got worse . . .

"If it gets worse, we can always go back then," he suggested, hoping that would satisfy her.

She agreed, though he could tell it was somewhat reluctantly, and led him through the bathroom out to the terrace. For the brief length of time it took to walk through, he forgot his worried musings, his imagination taken over once again by the extraordinary surroundings, as it had been the first time he'd been there. Even Wendell's palace had nothing to rival it. He'd had a special use in mind for the freeform blue pool with it's whirlpool water jets, which Linda had amazingly referred to as a _bathtub_, and it had nothing to do with bathing. Yesterday, however, he hadn't quite gotten around to trying it out, being rather preoccupied elsewhere. Today, as he passed by the pool-tub, he vowed to remedy that oversight.

But outside on the terrace, the pale sliver of the waxing crescent moon had risen halfway into the sky, still visible against the blue thanks to a cloud on the eastern horizon which still obscured the sun. The sight of the moon in that setting brought back the memory of his museum visit, the knowing that the people of this dimension had gone there. The idea frightened him, maybe because he was unable to stop himself from imagining what it had been like. No air. Somehow that seemed appropriate. He doubted he'd be able to breathe there anyway. Breathing had been difficult enough for him in the museum, just thinking about it. But could that only be another symptom of whatever was wrong with him? He didn't think so. Not directly, at least. This morning's episode had been very much like a mini-moon madness. At the museum he'd felt nothing like that. No matter how much pain he'd ever had to endure to prevent himself from morphing (and the last full moon had been one of the worst ever, as futile as it had turned out to be), he'd never had trouble breathing before. Unless they were both simply reactions he had to this _place_. That was certainly possible. Although he wouldn't like to say so to Virginia, he didn't think he could spend the rest of his life here where the ground was covered in concrete and the only woods were artificially planted and covered with the grime of an impossibly populous city. Not that it wasn't incredibly interesting to visit, or that he wouldn't stay here anyway if that was what Virginia wanted. He could tolerate that a lot better than he could living without her, he was sure of that. Maybe the whole thing was rooted in the lack of magic here. He'd never liked magic, personally, but then he'd never really stopped to consider the alternative (though he really didn't think even_ his_ imagination could have ever conjured _this_ up), though he hated to think of magic or its lack thereof having any kind of effect upon him.

_Cripes, do you have to analyze everything???_ His brother's voice was as clear in his mind as if he'd actually been there speaking, even after all these years. He smiled. The two of them had argued continuously, it seemed, though he'd usually just given in and let Rafe win, since his brother had apparently viewed everything Wolf did as a personal competition. He'd never understood why, since from his point of view Rafe was not only better looking, but so perfectly comfortable with what he was. But this particular argument wasn't one Wolf had been willing to let go. He'd been trying to figure out exactly what it was about the full moon that affected them and Rafe had, predictably, sneered. So Wolf had lunged at him. And, as usual, lost the match.

"Are you okay?" asked Virginia, bringing him abruptly back to the present. He realized he was still staring at the moon and tore his eyes abruptly away.

"Yes, I'm fine now," he said. "I was just thinking about my brother, that's all"

"You have a brother?" she asked.

He realized then that he'd never told her anything about his family.

"Yes, I have two sisters, too, but they didn't really grow up with us," he said. "Rafe - my brother - and I went to live with an aunt when I was eleven and he was ten. Our sisters were younger, and they went to live with some cousins who didn't live very close to us."

Virginia nodded.

"Is that what happened after your parents were killed?" she asked.

He blinked. How did she know that? Or had she just assumed that was what must have happened?

"You told me about what happened to them," she explained, apparently seeing his confusion. "When we were in Little Lamb Village."

"Oh." He wondered uneasily how much and what else he had told her.

"You don't remember that?"

He shook his head. "No," he said.

She nodded. "You only told me that they were dead and how it happened," she explained gently. "You didn't say anything else about your family at all."

At that moment, Justine brought their breakfast out. The smells wafted enticingly over from the tray she carried. Wolf's mouth began to water as soon as she opened the door, but he waited patiently until she'd set their plates on the table. He looked down at the large omelet of mushrooms, yellow cheese and some sort of green vegetable, the two slices of buttered toast, and the measly four strips of bacon on his plate, but decided not to complain since he knew Virginia wanted the woman gone as fast as possible. But then as she set down a pitcher of orange juice, which he detested, she said, "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Could I have some milk?" he asked before he could clamp his mouth shut, though he heroically managed to remain silent about the bacon. After Justine had left to go after his milk, Virginia, who had looked up in alarm at his request, smiled at him and moved all her bacon to his plate.

"Thank you," she said.

"Oh, but Virginia, this is yours! I can make myself some more later."

"Wolf, I'll be doing good if I can eat this whole omelet. I don't need bacon too. Really."

He nodded, picked up his fork, and poked at the omelet in front of him. The green stuff was broccoli, which he thought looked far too similar to beanstalk. Deftly, he pulled all of it out and laid it aside. He was nearly finished dissecting it when Justine finally returned with a crystal pitcher of milk and the thickest newspaper he'd ever seen: rolled up, it must have measured six inches in diameter.

"I took the liberty of getting you the Sunday paper," she said. "Will there be anything else?"

Both of them told her no and breathed a sigh of relief when she actually went away. Wolf had been prepared for her to stand over them and clean up after their every move as had been done the day before. He picked up the pitcher.

"You want some?" he asked.

"No, I don't like milk."

"Huff puff, more for me then," he said as he filled his glass.

"Wolf," she began, "Did you really mean that about making up your own recipes?"

"Of course I did," he replied, surprised. "Did you?"

"Yes," she said, then looked away and laughed, almost to herself.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "It's just that, well, before I ever knew the Nine Kingdoms existed I used to dream about someday opening my own restaurant. I thought all I needed to make that dream come true was to have a man who was interested in food as a partner."

He had his fork halfway to his mouth, but stopped and put it back down on his plate.

"I guess I could try to do that," he said hesitantly, privately marveling at the machinations of destiny. He had still been a little worried about his fixation on food, and here she had _wanted_ someone like that! "But, you know," he added, "I usually like to eat what I cook . . ."

"No, Wolf, don't worry about it," she said. "I don't know, it's just not important any more."

As soon as he had taken the last bite, Justine appeared instantly to clear away the dishes, making him wonder if she'd been staring at them the entire time they ate. To pass the time until she left, Virginia picked up the paper and unrolled it. Wolf would have beaten her to it - he was very curious about her world, but was slightly afraid of finding a headline about a moon landing. But the bold print on the front page only screamed cryptically: _War Renewed in Bosnia_. He hoped Bosnia wasn't nearby.

Virginia methodically separated out the paper into different sections: Sports, Business, Entertainment, Travel - that looked interesting - a small section of colorful pages, and a booklet. He picked up the booklet. _TV Guide_.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Oh, that just tells you what shows are going to be on TV this week," she said. She'd already explained the concept to him the day before.

He opened it and began flipping through the pages. Suddenly a small quarter-page advertisement caught his eye. It was a picture of an island with a snow-covered mountain at its center and several castles scattered throughout the surrounding woods. But beneath that, as if in a reflected image, a city very much like the one he was in was depicted. The words beneath it read, _The 10__th__ Kingdom_. Below that were several small pictures of different people.

"Look at this," he said, turning the page so Virginia could see it. "It's a TV story about Cinderella and Snow White!"

She bit her lip. "I hate to disappoint you, Wolf, but those things are hardly ever any good. It's just a collection of famous people the network put together to entice people to watch. You probably wouldn't even recognize Cinderella or Snow White at all, they've probably changed their stories so much. If there's even any real plot to it, which I doubt."

"Oh." There was something about the picture which intrigued him, regardless. He turned it upside down to get a better view of the city. "Is this New York?" he asked her.

"Yes, it is," she said, studying it. "Oh, I remember this now. It was on before, earlier this year."

"You've seen it, then?" he asked.

"No. I wouldn't have wasted my time."

"Oh." He was unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"It's not that I don't like fairy tales . . . I mean, stories about Snow White or Cinderella, it's that I just don't have any faith in the television industry being able to tell them. That's all. But I really do love this kind of thing. I always have."

He was about to ask her if they could just watch it anyway, but something stopped him. Instead, he asked, "Do you know the story of the Tenth Kingdom, then?"

"No," she said. "What is it?"

"The Tenth Kingdom was an island that disappeared centuries ago. A lot of centuries ago. At least that's what it was supposed to have been. It's really only a legend."

"Do you mean Atlantis?" she asked.

"What's Atlantis?"

She told him.

"No. I don't think it had anything to do with a volcano, or with the island sinking. And I don't think it was quite _that_ long ago."

"Well, what_ is_ the story?"

"I don't know. It's only a legend - everything I know about it I just told you: It was an island and it disappeared. Eight to ten centuries ago, more or less. I was hoping you could tell me."

"No, sorry, she said. "Was this one of the things you learned in school?"

"No." Where _had_he heard it? In prison? It all seemed so vague.

"Look," she said, "If you really want to watch it, we can do that. It's not like we have to be somewhere - when is it on, Friday? I just don't want you to be disappointed, that's all."

He smiled at her, happy she wasn't too set against seeing it. She could be right, of course, about it being only a terribly written play, but then it was also possible he'd find some interesting things out about his own world. There were several things which seemed strange to him about the connection between the two places - first, how the history of his world had found its way to hers, and second, why both traveling mirrors he'd seen had led to the exact same place. He was delighted to think that the story might hold some clues to those questions. But he got even happier when Justine left a few moments later and he finally got a chance to try out the new bathtub.

* * *

A blast of cold air hit Virginia in the face as she opened the glass door to the refrigerator at the convenience store just around the corner from their apartment. The Murrays had stocked it quite well, but they just hadn't figured on having a wolf live there. Oddly enough, there was still plenty of meat - that could be kept in the large freezer, and they had filled it to capacity. What they hadn't bought much of was milk, which she found quite understandable. She scooped up the gallon jug by the pink carrying handle, then supported it with her other hand, just to make sure the thing didn't slip off. The bottom of the container was already wet and it made her hand feel slimy. 

There was a fairly long line at the register, and she found herself standing part of the way down one of the aisles. She noted with amusement the large display of condoms to her right, and passed some of the time entertaining herself wondering what Wolf would make of them. She doubted he'd seen them - she was sure he'd have mentioned the outlandish advertising printed on the boxes if he had. The line had nearly allowed her to leave the aisle when she saw them: Home pregnancy tests.

Her period was already three days late, though she'd told herself that it could just be because of all the emotional strain she'd been under for the past month. But she knew, especially considering Wolf's prediction, that it was also quite possible she was really pregnant. Still, she had no direct proof, and was unwilling to visit a doctor simply to find out: They may have been living in total luxury, but in actuality they had very little cash - only her last paycheck from the _Grill_ and what little she'd had in savings. Her medical coverage had ended with her job. On an impulse, she picked up one of the boxes and took it with her.

Wolf was just putting the finishing touches on their dinner when she got home.

"Oh, huff, puff, good! I was starting to get worried about you," he said.

"It was just crowded," she told him, handing him the jug of milk. "I'll be right back."

She shut herself in the bathroom and took the pregnancy test out of the shopping bag. Yes, she thought, she really needed to get this over with. Thinking about it was starting to consume her. She'd never noticed before how many pregnant women there were in the city. On the way home alone she'd seen three, and all she'd done was walk around the corner. Once she'd taken the test, if it turned out she wasn't pregnant, she could finally go on with her life. And if she was, well, she'd think about that when she knew for certain. Purposefully, she tore open the end of the box and took out the directions.

* * *

Wolf had spread a sheet out on the floor in front of the giant screen television that dominated the living room. He thought they could eat dinner and watch _The Tenth Kingdom_ at the same time, but he was afraid of ruining the white carpet. _Oh, well_, he thought, _It looks a little like we're having a picnic now and that's nice, anyway._ The TV was already on, droning its way through a multitude of commercials. He found many of them more intriguing than the plays they were scattered through - it amused him to figure out what tools they used in this dimension to sell things to people. So far he'd noticed that they used a lot of sexual suggestion. The one that was on now, for instance, seemed to consist of nothing but that: Two people, in different cars, were staring at each other out their windows, obviously mutually attracted. Wolf actually stood and watched it, even though he was in a hurry to get dinner out, because the man in it reminded him vaguely of a wolf. But he couldn't have been, of course. Not in this dimension. Nor was the character, he concluded, after watching the end. They guy'd had a baby daughter in the back seat, and so obviously had someone else for a mate. It was not even a very good commercial, he judged, since he still had no clear idea of what it was trying to sell. There were some cryptic words at the end: _Passat, by Volkswagon_, but even if he'd known what they meant, he didn't think it would be enough. _Huff, puff, if you want to sell something, you shouldn't make people wonder what it is, _he thought as he hurried back into the kitchen to get the food.

* * *

"Oh, my God," she murmured. 

Virginia stared at the thin, pink plastic wand in her hand, unable to quite take in what it was telling her. _The white indicator panel will turn pink if you are pregnant_, the directions had said. She'd wondered how pink it was supposed to turn, and what she was supposed to think if it came out with only a slight blush. But she needn't have worried. The thing was positively neon. Wolf was right. She _was_ pregnant.

Still, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off the wand. She heard Wolf call to her from the other room, but took no notice. _I don't feel any different at all_, she thought. _And I must have been pregnant for what, almost three weeks now? No morning sickness, no cravings - nothing! Shouldn't I feel different somehow if I'm really pregnant?_ Yet there was the indicator in her hand. And Wolf had somehow known, too. _How?_

Thinking of him made her realize he was shouting from the other room.

"Virginia!!! Come here! You have to see this!"

Numbly, she walked out into the living room, still holding the wand, looking up at the television just as the music faded from the title scene.

"Oh, you missed it!" he exclaimed, disappointed. "You should have seen . . ."

"Be quiet!" she snapped. The opening words, spoken in a voice-over by an actress, riveted her:

"My name is Virginia and I live on the edge of the forest."

He started to say something else, but stopped. Both of them stared, their mouths open, at the actress who had evidently been speaking. Her costume was unmistakable: She was wearing clothes identical to the ones Virginia had worn threadbare during their adventure in the Nine Kingdoms.


	3. II Wolf's Secret

II - Wolf's Secret

Both Virginia and Wolf watched transfixed as the 'Virginia' on the television walked her bike out to the elevator. But when the scene finally shifted to the Snow White Memorial Prison, Virginia recovered enough presence of mind to dive for one of the blank videocassettes lined up on the shelf beside the TV. Unfortunately, the cellophane the tape was wrapped with refused to yield and she wasted several seconds in a futile effort to tear it until Wolf simply took it out of her hands and ripped through it with his teeth. His eyes never left the screen, however. Virginia shoved it in the VCR and pressed 'record' just as Wendell reached the prison.

"Not exactly the red carpet treatment!" he was complaining. Had he really been that much of a petulant brat, she wondered? She supposed he must have been - the details of her trip down the elevator had been exact, from the conversation with Murray to the exact content of the meal she'd left her father that night. Not that she'd have remembered those barbequed ribs if she'd been asked, but seeing it enacted brought it all immediately back. Which served to remind her once again of exactly how weird the situation was: _Her life was being played out on television!_

She felt Wolf take her hand, then realized suddenly where the onscreen trolls were headed: to her mother's cell. Her mother was the one calling them. No, not _them_ - him; the one who'd wanted to burn her feet. But to her surprise, she was able to watch her mother and remain detached, and not because it was simply some actress pretending to be her, for Virginia knew very well her mother had said and done those exact things.

Together the two of them watched Wendell get turned into a dog and run away. Then she felt Wolf's hand tighten almost painfully around hers. She gasped and looked up at him, and as he shook his gaze loose from the TV screen, she saw the haunted look in his eyes. He looked down at their clasped hands, loosened his grip, then pressed her hand between both of his. As she glanced back at the TV, she saw - _him_. Heard him tell her mother he was a half-wolf and saw - for the first time ever - his eyes change to yellow animal-eyes. And then, before she could completely recover from this discovery, her mother had let him out of his cell and was demanding his will. With a knot in her stomach, she heard him give it to her, thinking how at that moment the actor was so like her Wolf - not so much in exactness of feature, but in something else she couldn't quite define. It somehow played up the enormity of what she was seeing - that the casting office for a network television program had gone to such lengths - because despite what she'd told Wolf about such shows being filled with stars earlier, she'd never seen this guy in anything. _But how had they known?_

* * *

Wolf watched 'himself' get out of prison with a curious unsurprise that the man he'd only just seen in the commercial should be portraying him. He had seemed wolflike driving the car. Here there was no doubt. He didn't know whether, if the man's clothes were to suddenly fall off, he would be more surprised to find he really had a tail or that he didn't. The brief moment when he'd allowed the animal to surface, to give credence to his claim of being a half-wolf, he recognized as a special effect, however. It was well done, but simply not realistic. For one thing, his eyes didn't change color, except in certain angles of reflected light when they'd appear red, much the same as an animal's would. For another . . . _ooooohhhh, what am I doing??? _he thought. _Our entire adventure is somehow being documented where no one should have heard about it! Why am I analyzing a special effect????_ In the back of his mind, he felt his brother's memory smile cynically. Yet in spite of his absorption in the fine details of digital special effects, he hadn't missed feeling Virginia stiffen when she'd seen his eyes change. If they watched the whole thing, how much more would she see? What if his animal nature was too savage for her? Would she hate him? And what about the cub she was carrying? Would she hate it, too? On the screen, the bicycle flew into the air and Virginia crashed to the pavement. Wolf's heart lurched in his chest, the pain of watching her suffer made worse by seeing, immediately afterward, an image of himself smiling at finally being outdoors after so many years in a cell. He realized he was crying, the tears streaming down his face, and he barely noticed the trolls as they proclaimed the dimension they'd entered to be the Tenth Kingdom.

Abruptly, the television blinked off. He growled.

"Wolf . . ." began Virginia..

"Why'd you turn it off?!!" he demanded angrily. She jumped at the harshness in his tone, and he suddenly realized what was happening to him.

"Virginia . . ." he said hoarsely, "I . . ."

She placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart, and he took it.

"It's happening to you again, isn't it?" she asked.

He didn't answer. He really didn't have to.

"Let's sit down." They had been standing the whole time, both of them too surprised to even move. Obediently, he sat down on the floor. She put her arms around him and he pulled her in and held her tightly._ Cripes, she feels so wonderful, _he thought. Just the feel of her soothed him like nothing else ever had.

"I turned it off because I thought it would be better for both of us to watch it off of the tape, where we could stop it when we wanted to," she said. "It _is_ still recording."

Still holding him, she looked up. "Can you really do that with your eyes?" she asked.

He froze, alarmed for a moment by her question, until he realized there was no fear in it. She only seemed curious.

"I'd like to know," she added.

"Not exactly," he said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Not exactly how?" she asked. Her left hand started towards his face, but stopped when she apparently noticed she was holding some odd pink thing. After transferring it to her other hand, she caressed the tracks his tears had made. "Show me," she said.

He'd been going to refuse - he'd really doubted he could even do it now. Although it was a simple enough action, it did require that he have the right mental state. Or, at least not the wrong mental state, which he'd had - he'd been terrified of her seeing anything more animal-like about him. But he'd gotten distracted wondering what the thing she was holding could be, so that when she finally asked, he simply showed her. Her reaction, one of amused surprise, relieved him deeply, so much so that he remembered his dinner was sitting in front of him. He leaned forward, picked up one of the spare ribs and took a bite out of it.

* * *

Virginia, too, picked up one of the ribs on her plate. But it was already cold, and when she got it close, the first thing she noticed was a large gob of glistening fat quivering on one end. The sight of it revolted her, though she thought Wolf's marinade smelled pretty good. She knew she should really take a bite of it to please him - he'd concocted the marinade yesterday especially for this night, he'd said - but the idea somehow made her stomach turn. So she put it back down, noticing again that she was still holding the pregnancy test in her right hand.

"What is that pink thing?" Wolf asked. His voice was still a little rough, but otherwise he sounded quite normal.

"Oh," she replied. "It's a pregnancy test."

"What does it test about it?" he asked.

"It just tells me if I am or not," she said. He was silent. She looked up at him, into his eyes, now so human, so full of the wonder they always held when they looked at her, and a bit of humor, too, as he reached out to touch her face. With a little shiver she recalled the way his eyes had changed: alien and wild, different, but somehow familiar and still recognizable as uniquely him. The special effects hadn't got it; in fact compared to the real thing, they were absurd, as primitive as a pie tin used for a spaceship. Even now he seemed phantasmagorical to her, when there was nothing about his fully dressed self to suggest he was anything other than entirely human.

"How did you know that I was?" she asked him.

"It's in your scent," he replied, his voice low, nearly a whisper. He ran his fingers through her hair, then took the wand from her hand. "How does this work?" he asked.

"Oh, it just finds chemical changes in my body."

He smiled.

"Isn't that what I did, Virginia?"

_Of course_, she thought. _Why didn't I think of it that way?_ Still, it didn't explain . . .

"But how could you have known it right afterwards?" she wanted to know.

He smiled again.

"I didn't," he told her, "Not till the next day."

She was about to comment on his hair-splitting, when he continued, "And I didn't really know for sure until the day after that. By then you'd been asleep for so long I was starting to get worried. I knew you were probably just exhausted from everything that happened, but . . ." He didn't finish.

She remembered the look on his face when she'd awakened that day in Wendell's castle. _Oh, I've been waiting for you to wake up. You've been asleep for two days._ She felt slightly disappointed, since she'd thought he'd been worried about what she'd had to go through until now. But then, on the heels of her disappointment, came the memory of him, still dressed in the livery of the House of White, carrying her from the ballroom past princes, kings and queens, and staying with her until she cried herself to sleep. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly, felt his answering squeeze. He was so excited about the prospect of a baby and she could still not quite believe it. Didn't want to believe it. Even thinking about it brought a cold flame of fear licking at the base of her spine. She stared unseeingly at the red light on the video recorder and willed herself to think of something else.

"Wolf?"

"Hmm?"

"How could they have known what was going to happen to us? All those small details - that all happened, at least they did for me. Did it for you?"

He hesitated a moment and she felt his muscles tighten before he answered, "Yes."

She knew he was thinking about how he'd given his will away. Watching that had chilled her, even though she knew it had come to nothing. Hadn't it?

"You're thinking of what you had to tell . . . _her_ to get free, aren't you?" She couldn't bring herself to call the woman her mother. Her mother had been someone else, someone from long ago.

He nodded without looking at her.

"But it didn't make any difference," she told him as gently as she could. "She didn't have any control over you."

He looked away, and suddenly she could feel him shaking. _How much did you have to go through that you never told me?_ she wondered. An image sprang into her mind of him, in Little Lamb Village, wild with some unspoken turmoil asking her to tie him up. _What's the worst thing you've ever done?_ he'd asked. She'd thought he was delirious. Wasn't he?

"Is that . . . is that why you wanted me to tie you?"

She felt the gasping sob he let out, saw him glance at her then quickly away. His eyes were full of tears.

"You were afraid you'd hurt me?"

He stared pointedly away and did not reply.

"But you didn't," she pointed out. "The ropes didn't hold you. You got free and you didn't hurt me at all. You didn't hurt anyone!"

* * *

She doesn't know, he thought. How could he tell her? He'd thought the same thing at the time, that if he hadn't tried to hurt her then, he wouldn't be likely to, ever. But now he was not so sure. His cycle was suddenly all wrong: if he couldn't even control his most basic emotions in the middle of the month, what would he be like during the full moon? Why had it been his destiny to have Virginia for his mate? So far as he knew, no half-wolf had ever mated outside the pack except into a few gypsy bands. Virginia would in all likelihood never have accepted him if she hadn't been from this dimension where beings like himself did not exist. She didn't know what he really was, not yet. But she would. The strange electronic play would show her, in minute detail, probably not tonight, but soon.

Though he knew, logically, that it would be better for her to see and know ahead of time what would happen to him, rather than trying to absorb that kind of knowledge in the middle of having to handle the problems it created - _oh, yes, that's a delicate way of putting it_, he thought sarcastically - emotionally, he didn't want her to know what happened to him at all. It was far too easy for him to imagine her looking at him with horror and running away, screaming. He knew he'd never be able to take it if she did. And in his present state, how would he react? He remembered enough of the last full moon to know the feelings she'd stirred in him - they'd been in the barn and he must have done something to frighten her, because he could recall her backing away holding a pitchfork - and what he'd wanted to do to her did not involve eating. If Tony hadn't walked in at just that moment, she'd hate him now. _Maybe it would've been better if she did_, he thought. It would have been awful to bear - he remembered the anguish he'd felt after she'd left him in Kissingtown - but that was nothing compared to how he'd manage now, after knowing what it was like for her to love him in return.

A small, objective part of his brain knew he was wallowing in raw emotion, yet he felt helpless to stop himself. After all, no logical argument he could imagine would adequately explain what was happening to him or why.

"Virginia . . ." His voice came out as little more than a hoarse croak.

"What?" Her voice was so soft, so full of caring and concern.

_Cripes, how can I stand to lose that?_ he thought. His throat closed. For a moment he couldn't speak at all. She shifted around and looked up at him, her eyes mirroring the concern he'd heard in her voice. With a shudder, he hugged her to him as tightly as he could, his eyes closed.

"I think I need to go back," he finally managed to whisper.

She pulled away a little and looked at him. In her eyes he saw fear - but it was fear for him, not of him. Not yet.

"It's that bad?" she asked. He could hear her worry for him.

He took a deep breath. Talking about it _did_ help, he thought, although he knew he'd never be able to tell her everything. Just the bare minimum. Just what she'd _have_ to know.

"Only that I'm worried about what's going to happen when my cycle comes up. If I'm this out of control in the middle of the month, I don't want to think about what might happen then." He traced his fingers lightly down the side of her face, unable to stop his own tears from falling. _How much longer do I have before she's gone?_ he wondered.

"This isn't the beginning of it, then?" she asked.

"No. It's not due to start until Wednesday."

"Okay," she said tentatively, laying her head against his chest. "That should probably leave us enough time to find someone who can help you if we leave now."

"NO!!!!" he shouted. Virginia jumped, startled, but recovered her composure quickly.

"I'm sorry!" he told her. "I didn't mean to . . ."

"I understand," she said, starting to get up. "Come on, let's go."

He pulled her back down. She looked at him questioningly.

"If we leave now, we'll miss the other parts of the program," he said. _Why did I say that? We could have just left and she'd never have seen! - No, it's important. It doesn't make sense that anyone here could have known about our lives in the Nine Kingdoms, but somehow they do. There has to be a reason. I can't just ignore it. Even if it means I'll lose her . . ._

Virginia bit her lip.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Nothing bad's going to happen to me, all right?!" he said sharply. "Not until Wednesday! Is that clear enough?" _Oooooh, what am I doing? I'm going to lose what little time I have left with her!_

This time, however, she didn't even flinch, just regarded him levelly.

"All right," she conceded. "We can probably fit three shows on a tape. That means that after tomorrow night, we can just program the machine to tape the rest of them automatically. So we can leave Sunday morning, is that okay?"

He nodded.

"Okay."

* * *

Virginia lay awake in bed, watching the play of lights from the city wash across the ceiling. Beside her she could hear Wolf's soft, steady breathing. His arms were still wrapped around her as they had been when he'd finally fallen asleep. She was desperately worried about him - she knew there was definitely something he was not telling her. He'd spent most of the evening gazing at her face, tracing it with his fingers, over and over, as if he might never see it again. Their lovemaking had been the same. Although the way he'd undressed her on the living room floor had been somewhat reminiscent of that day in the woods, that was where any resemblance ended. Usually he was playful and adventurous. Tonight had been intense and full of a painful urgency. _Is he going to die?_ she wondered, the thought itself bringing tears. _Is that what he knows that he won't tell me?_ The tears spilled out over her cheek and onto the pillow. She couldn't stop them, though she tried very hard not to sob: She didn't want to wake him. _Why was I afraid of being pregnant? Why couldn't I have been happy like he was? He loves the baby so much . . . And he might never__even get to see it. He kept putting his hand there like he was saying goodbye._

The tears choked her; she could no longer keep the sobs from escaping. Carefully, she climbed out from under Wolf's arm and crept down the hall to the other bedroom, closing the door behind her, where she flung herself on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

When Wolf finally awoke it was fully daylight. The first thing he noticed was that Virginia was already up. The second thing he noticed was that the blinding headache he'd developed the evening before was finally gone. For a few moments, he just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, enjoying the feeling of normality, then he looked at the clock. It read eight thirty. _Cripes, no wonder Virginia is up ahead of me_, he thought. As he quickly sat up on the edge of the bed he realized that, even though his head was now completely clear, his body was still quite drained from last night's episode._ I just need to eat something_, he thought, walking out into the hall on his way to the kitchen.

He glanced into the living room as he passed, then stopped in the doorway. The remains of last night's meal still lay out on the sheet he'd spread on the carpet. Nearby was the little pile of their clothes. Virginia was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged, then collected a few of the dirty dishes to carry into the kitchen with him. But she was not in there, either. The kitchen hadn't been touched since he'd finished cooking last night. It occurred to him then that he couldn't hear movement anywhere in the apartment. _She must have gone out to get something for breakfast_, he decided. But he didn't know how long ago she might have left, so he took a pound of bacon out of the refrigerator and threw it on the grill. He was hungry enough anyway that he could eat that plus whatever she brought back. While it was cooking, he collected the rest of the dishes from the living room.

He carried the platter of bacon out to the living room and sat down on the sofa, waiting for Virginia to come home. He knew that lounging around nude was not a good idea, since the Murrays could easily pop in unexpectedly without knocking, but right now he didn't care. He even amused himself for a moment, imagining what their reaction would be to him when they burst through the door, and wondered if whatever hold Tony had put them under would carry over to accepting a man with a tail as perfectly normal here. But the large, blank screen of the television checked his flight of fancy before he had a chance to elaborate on it, calling him back to the strange events of the night before. Yes, he thought, he needed to consider that now that he could think. How was it possible for their escapade to be known here, and so soon after it had happened? _No,_ he amended, _Virginia said what? That it was originally on a long time ago? Before any of it ever occurred?_ That _was_ impossible. _No, nothing's impossible_. Just very, very unlikely. He'd been ready to conclude that their tale was recorded here in much the same way as his land's history had been. It wouldn't have explained how it was done, but at least it would have been consistent. And the fact that the mirrors both led here - he'd been hoping for more information on that. Maybe he would get it - there was something to be said for finding out the parts of your story that you weren't directly involved in.

Thinking of that reminded him once again of the reason he'd been so upset last night. Even now, when he could be rational, he found he was relieved that it wouldn't be necessary for her to watch what had happened during the last full moon. They'd be safely away in the fourth kingdom, taping it from afar, and he could lock himself in Wendell's dungeon. Virginia would be safe with him there. Then, later, Wendell and his council could watch it and figure out what it all meant, and he and Virginia could go away somewhere together. She'd mentioned someplace she thought he would like called Bear Mountain. That sounded like a good place for them to go.

He'd finished the bacon and still she was not back. With a sigh, he sifted through the clothes on the floor, pulled out his trousers and put them on. Then he picked up the rest of the pile and headed for the laundry. When he passed the door to the second bedroom, he thought it odd that it was closed - he remembered it as always being open. Curiously, he turned the handle.

Virginia lay on the bed asleep, curled up into a ball, the blanket twisted in her hands. Wolf blinked once and his heart stood completely still. The clothes he was carrying fell to the floor. _She wasn't up_, he thought. _She just can't stand to sleep with me any more. I've driven her away._

He found himself kneeling beside her, unable to recall how he'd gotten from the door to the bed. Her brow was furrowed, even in sleep, and he longed to kiss it smooth, but knew it would do little good, since he was certain it was his presence which distressed her. And, in any case, he wouldn't have wanted to awaken her - she needed her sleep, he thought, though he could tell by her scent that both she and the baby were healthy and strong. The scent itself fairly intoxicated him - he breathed it in deeply, savoring the short time he still had in which to enjoy it. Tears welled up in his eyes as he realized that the image he had of himself romping with his cubs, Virginia smiling at his side, would never come to be. He was destined never to have children. The baby she was carrying was an animal, like himself. She would hate it.

He had to almost run for the door to avoid waking her, but he managed to close it quietly behind him before the sobs broke loose. In the hall, he collapsed on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, and cried until his tears ran dry and a great emptiness overcame him. For a long time he sat like that, his eyes open, seeing nothing. Thinking nothing. After awhile he noticed the dirty clothes he'd dropped. Slowly, he unfolded himself, and after a few more minutes, drew the clothes over to him. He paused, briefly, then mechanically got to his feet, carried the clothes to the laundry and put them in the washer. When he'd started the wash, he went back to the kitchen and began cleaning up the mess there, all the while keeping his thoughts narrowly focused on his task There was nothing else for him to think. He had no future.

* * *

Virginia awoke with her head pounding. The pit of her stomach felt hollow, and it ached. Momentarily disoriented, she looked around and a wave of dizziness swept over her. She closed her eyes. _Great_, she thought. _Why did I have to say I had no morning sickness?_ But then she remembered where she was as the full memory of last night rushed back to her.

_Not morning sickness, then_, she thought, fresh tears springing to her eyes. _Now I wish it was_. The muscles in her stomach clenched tighter and she knew she was making herself sick with worry, but she couldn't stop herself.

Gradually she became aware of a soft tugging at her left hand. _Oh! My ring!_ she thought. _Maybe it can tell me what's the matter with Wolf . . ._ She brought it up and peered at the tiny face. It looked sad. Almost as sad as she felt. _Oh, no,_ she thought. Her stomach knotted more.

"Wake up Virginia, you must hurry!  
Your Wolf is filled with sorrow and worry," it sang.

"That's it?" she asked. "You can't tell me what's wrong with him?"

"I cannot reveal what's in his heart  
That is something he must impart."

She burst into tears, almost certain now that he was facing impending death. Desperately she fought her heartache, remembering the first thing the ring had told her. _Oh, my God, yes,_ she thought, _What's he going to think when he wakes up and I'm not there?_ She sat bolt upright, then had to steady herself while she waited for the inside of her head to catch up. Why was she so lightheaded? The constant pounding at her temples didn't help much, either. Finally, she stood up and walked out into the hall.

He was no longer in bed. _No,_she thought, _he never sleeps late._ She'd have been more worried if he'd still been there. She realized then that she'd heard the washing machine running all along, so should have known to begin with that he was up. _What had he thought?_ she wondered. _Did he find me sleeping in the other room?_ Clutching her twisting stomach, she headed for the kitchen.

He was standing behind the counter, shirtless, his face full of sorrow, and he glanced up pitifully at her when she entered the room. That much she noticed before the stench overcame her: a mixture of old grease, industrial soap, and vegetable rot. It was too much for her already unsettled stomach to take. She felt the blood drain from her face and fled from the room, though by the time she reached the bathroom, her nausea had subsided. So she walked through it out to the terrace, sat at the patio table and put her head down. The fresh air helped her considerably. _Great,_ she thought. _Now I've made it worse for him. What is the matter with me, anyway? I've never made myself sick worrying over anyone before. And surely morning sickness doesn't automatically begin just because you find out you're pregnant._ With an effort, she forced the hand that was still pressed to her stomach down to below her waist. It was the first time she'd acknowledged a presence there on her own, and she had to struggle to make herself do it. _But I've never cared about anyone as much as I do your dad, either,_ she added, her tears falling silently, though somehow, she felt a little better. At least, her stomach felt less queasy and the nausea was gone. She'd have to go back in the kitchen, she knew. But she'd manage it. She'd have to.

Wolf stood in the middle of the kitchen floor feeling as if he'd just received a physical blow. He'd thought himself numb to any further emotion, but he'd been wrong. Before, he'd only envisioned Virginia rejecting him, concluding that she had by circumstantial evidence. But now she'd confirmed his worse fears - she'd taken one look at him and run from the room.

He'd have to leave, he thought. It was the only solution. She was in her own dimension and, unlike the time she'd rejected him in Kissingtown, she wasn't in any danger. He, Wolf, was superfluous and totally unnecessary here. Yet he couldn't seem to make his feet move. He stood rooted to the spot, all the times he'd seen her smile at him, all the times they'd made love, all the times they'd laughed together racing through his mind. And, repeated constantly, he kept hearing her say, "I think I love you," that day in the swamp. She'd touched his face and said, "And I never want to hurt you . . ." He wanted to cry, to scream, but he couldn't. He could only stand there, motionless and numb. If he moved, he'd have to leave, and to leave was to give up all hope. So he stood without moving.

Presently he heard her footsteps approaching. She was at the door, starting to push it open. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of her running from him again. The sound of his own blood pounding in his ears drowned out her further progress, so that when he felt her take his hand, he jumped, startled, eyes snapping open reflexively, the animal eyes.

In the blinding light she appeared to him as little more than a silhouette, but as she pulled at his hand he overcame his panic and his eyes returned to normal. She was holding her nose and trying to lead him from the room. Silently, he complied, following her through the house to the terrace. There, she released both his hand and her nose and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. It was then that he realized she was shaking.

He drew back slightly to study her face. She was crying and he could tell by the redness of her eyes that it wasn't the first time. But she was also very pale. He sat her down in one of the chairs, then sat down himself, beside her, holding her hand. She didn't really smell sick to him, but there was something undefinable about her scent that he didn't like. It was unpleasantly familiar.

"Virginia, are you all right?" he asked.

"Me?" she said incredulously. "I've just been so worried about you! Last night I was afraid I'd wake you up, so I went in the other room, and I guess I fell asleep in there. I never meant to hurt you. When I woke up this morning, the ring told me how you felt."

_The ring? What else does it know?_ he wondered.

Virginia hadn't finished: "But when I went into the kitchen to see you, the odor just made me so sick I couldn't stay there," she explained. "I'm so sorry!"

He started to wonder what odor she was talking about, since the only thing he'd smelled in the kitchen had been the lingering aroma of last night's dinner and the bacon he'd fixed this morning, but was interrupted by the sudden memory of exactly what was so familiar about her scent: It reminded him of the way she had smelled that night after she'd had to kill her mother. What could have upset her that much, he wondered? And why was she worried about upsetting him? He'd realized how silly he'd been in thinking she hated him as soon as she'd put her arms around him. Now he was only worried about her. His fingers tightened on her hand.

"Please tell me what's wrong, Virginia" he said.

She looked up at him, confused.

"But that's what I want you to tell me," she said, telling him the rest of what the ring had sung. "What is it? What aren't you telling me?" she asked.

He sat for a moment, frozen to his chair. _No,_he thought. _I can't tell her. She __**would**__ hate me then, and I know I can't stand to lose her! We were going to leave . . . she'd never have to know . . ._

"Wolf, are you going to die?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the last word. "Is that what you won't tell me?" The sobbing choked her then and she gasped, unable to catch her breath. Wolf didn't think. He drew her onto his lap, holding and stroking her as he would have a child.

"Shhh," he said. "I'm not going to die." He kissed her eyelids. "Shhh."

She clung to him tightly. Gradually her sobs lessened and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

_**I**__ am what is the matter,_ he thought. _I've hurt her! I've been so worried about what her reaction to me would be that I couldn't see what I was doing to her now!_ His own eyes filled with tears as he murmured some more reassurances to her. _I should just tell her, _he thought._ Just get it over with. Then she would know. At least she could quit worrying . . . Couldn't she?_

"What_is_ the matter, then?" she asked, finally finding her voice. "Why won't you tell me?"

He almost told her. But she was sitting in his lap, looking at him so trustingly with those incredibly blue eyes, still swollen and red from crying over him, that . . .

"I can't," he said.

"But why not?"

He wiped away a tear from her cheek.

"I just can't," he said quietly. "I have to work this out on my own."

"Wolf . . ."

"Please, Virginia. I'll be fine. Really." He was lying through his teeth and he knew it - he had no idea what was happening to him or why, or whether or not he would really be fine, but he couldn't let her know that. She'd already made herself sick worrying about him. That was terrible enough under normal circumstances. But to put her under that kind of strain when she was carrying his child was inexcusable. She still looked unnaturally pale to him.

"You said you felt sick," he said. "Are _you_ all right?"

"You're changing the subject," she pointed out.

He relented a little.

"It just has to do with the problem with my cycle," he admitted. "But we're going back tomorrow and it will all get taken care of. There's nothing to worry about."

* * *

Virginia knew he was lying. There was plenty to worry about, she thought, and she was. But she was no longer afraid he might die. His reaction to that suggestion had been one of shock, not discovery. She thought he was telling the truth about it having to do with his cycle, but knew there was more to all that than he was willing to admit. It hurt her a little that he didn't seem to trust her enough to share what he was going through, especially since he'd gone to such length to convince her to trust_ him_. But because she had been so self-contained for so long before she met him, she also thought she understood why he thought he couldn't tell her. So she decided to leave him alone about it - for now. When they returned to the fourth kingdom, however, she would insist he see a doctor.

"You're very pale," he said to her. Concern filled his voice. Although she knew that, because of whatever was wrong that he wouldn't tell her, he was emotionally on the edge, she thought better of shrugging it off for his benefit. Maybe she could set a good example.

"I don't really feel very well," she admitted.

As she half-expected, he overreacted.

"Wolf, it's not that bad," she told him. "I just have a headache and I'm a little light-headed, that's all." There was still a hollow ache in her stomach but she didn't mention it since it had stopped twisting in knots and she no longer felt queasy.

He regarded her silently for a moment, obviously thinking. Finally he asked, "Virginia, when was the last time you ate anything?"

Now she had to think. _When was it?_ "Yesterday, I guess," she said. "Around lunch time. I had a salad."

"Oooh, that's the problem. You have to eat something."

"I've gone that long between meals before, Wolf."

"But you haven't been pregnant."

His statement gave her a bit of a shock. She remembered what she'd thought the day before, when she'd taken the pregnancy test, about how nothing about her seemed changed. But was that true? Would eating something help? Unfortunately, looking at Wolf, she suddenly got a mental picture of bacon frying. It turned her stomach.

"I'm not hungry," she said flatly.

"That's because you've gone too long without food," he insisted. "Look, you just sit here and I'll fix you breakfast."

He started to get up.

"No, Wolf, really," she protested. "I couldn't eat it. I don't think it would stay down."

"It's just going to get worse if you don't try," he told her.

They argued about it for awhile until she finally agreed to try a bit of the fruit salad she'd made the previous morning. To her surprise, it settled her stomach almost immediately, and the light-headed feeling she'd had virtually disappeared. _Now that's weird,_ she thought. _Am I going to have to spend the next eight months making sure I don't miss a meal?_ Her eyes rested on Wolf, who was eating the rest of the fruit from the serving bowl as he carried the dishes inside (he'd gallantly refrained from eating anything else in her presence that morning). She smiled and looked down at her still-flat stomach. _You're definitely your father's child there,_ she thought. _I guess I'd better get used to it._

* * *

After last night, Virginia was a bit worried about how Wolf would take watching the rest of the tape they'd made of _The Tenth Kingdom_. But he managed to get through it with only a little distress. She'd curled up next to him on the sofa wondering how she was going to stay awake through it - she was already exhausted from everything she'd gone through that morning even though she'd only been up a short time. But it really wasn't too difficult. Although the trolls didn't interest her very much - and surprisingly, neither did her mother's actions - she was absolutely fascinated by Wolf. It wasn't easy for him to watch what he'd done, though - or else to know she was watching it, she amended. Every time the action switched to him, she felt him tense up, but she was able to relax him again by hugging him very hard. There was only one thing she saw that angered her: Her father's willingness to jeopardize her safety for wealth. It bothered her so much she turned off the TV.

"He told you where I was?" she demanded, outraged. "Just like that?"

Wolf pulled her closer to him with the arm he had around her and took her hand.

"It wasn't completely his fault, Virginia," he told her. " Remember the magic shoes? They had such a powerful effect on you because you had such a strong desire to be invisible. It was the same with Tony and the dragon dung bean."

She was silent a moment, remembering how intoxicated she'd felt around the shoes, how powerful they'd seemed to make her.

"Oh," she finally said.

"And the fact that he was still groggy from the troll dust helped a lot, too," Wolf added.

On an impulse, she rewound the scene.

"What are you doing?" he asked her. It wasn't that he didn't know. She knew he just didn't like it. He was tensing up already.

"I want to see it again," she said. She kissed him on the side of the face and hugged him in reassurance.

The scene played out before her and she found that, once she accepted that her father wasn't responsible for his reaction to the bean, she enjoyed watching it tremendously. She'd never imagined Wolf as a con artist, but there he was! What had he said? _I never used to care how mean I was to people . . ._ But for her, he'd never been anything less than completely genuine._Except when we were caught in the mirror room at the palace,_ she remembered._ No wonder he was so good at fooling everyone!_ And the way he'd reacted to her picture was so sweet! Had he known even then that he loved her? She asked him, and this time Wolf was the one who turned off the television.

He smiled into her eyes and flicked at the hair on her temple. Even if he'd said nothing, she would have been contented - the gesture was so like her old Wolf, loving and happy, that she almost cried in relief. It wasn't until then that she realized how much she was still worried about him. But he went on, much like his old self, "I knew something, I think," he admitted, "But I wasn't sure what. And I'd gotten your scent before, and I think I even knew from that, but it was a bit confusing for me because you were _her_ daughter."

"Oh."

"But then when I met you - I can't even explain how it felt!" His voice was little more than a whisper, purring close to her ear. "I just knew."

He leaned over and kissed her lingeringly on the lips. She felt pins and needles run through her entire body and she leaned into Wolf, her fingers tightening where they touched him. But when he broke the kiss and had caressed her face both with his hands and his eyes, he only turned away and restarted the tape.

* * *

Wolf knew that Virginia wanted him. If her physical reaction to the kiss had not told him, the look in her eyes afterwards certainly would have. But it had only been a little while since he'd finally gotten her to eat something, and she had been difficult enough to convince that he knew she must have felt very unwell. He really didn't want to put her through any physical exertion just yet. So he hugged her tightly to him and kissed her hair while he watched her television counterpart talk with her grandmother. She laid her head back against him and closed her eyes. But the sound of her "father's" voice regained her attention. It didn't take long for them to find out what had happened to the Murrays.

"Forever," said Wolf. "He specifically said, 'forever.' So it isn't going to wear off."

"Well, it serves them right," said Virginia. "I can't believe he was going to just throw us out with no notice!"

"I sure wouldn't want to be Tony, though," Wolf commented.

Virginia looked at him quizzically.

"I'd have to constantly fight them to stay away from my ass," he explained.

Her eyes widened and then she burst out laughing.

"You're kidding!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, no, you'll see! The wishes tend to be very literal about that sort of thing."

But before the play showed them how the wish was fulfilled, it showed them Wolf at her grandmother's door. He tensed up, like he always did whenever "he" was onscreen, unsure of exactly how Virginia would take knowing what he had really been like before they'd met. It was one thing to talk about it, quite another to actually see what he'd done. And it was getting painfully near the time he had tied her grandmother into a roasting pan.

He felt Virginia squeeze him as she had all morning whenever he was being shown, but her hug had an automatic feel to it as if her mind really wasn't on what she was doing. He looked down at her, his panic starting to build again as he watched her stare open-mouthed at the way he'd lied to her grandmother in order to get in the apartment. Mercifully, the scene was short, and again Virginia shut the tape off when it ended.

"She unlocked the door," she stated.

This was not at all what Wolf was expecting to hear. He blinked in confusion. Virginia looked up at him. "She unlocked the door?" she repeated, this time as a question.

"Yes," he replied. "So?" He was really still waiting for her to get mad at him.

"She told me it was my fault you got in because I must have left the door unlocked."

_Oh,_ he thought. _I wonder what else Grandma made up?_

Virginia stared at the blank television screen a moment more, obviously thinking. Then she started to laugh.

"What?" he asked, though he was greatly relieved at her reaction.

She looked at him.

"The heir to an enormous fortune?" she asked dryly.

"Well, Tony said money was the only thing that impressed her," he answered.

"It worked."

"Yes, it did."

They both laughed for a moment. Then Wolf said, "You know what happens next, don't you?"

She nodded.

"You're going to tie her up in the kitchen," she replied, and turned the tape back on.

Wolf squirmed through watching Tony waste two of his wishes before the story finally came back to him. But though he heard himself dancing and singing around the kitchen pretending to cook Grandma, he couldn't take his eyes from Virginia. How would she react? Would it be too much for her?

The corners of her mouth quirked. _Is she smiling?_ he wondered. _Does she really think it's funny? Or am I hoping too much?_

She started laughing. Wolf breathed a sigh of relief, noticing only then that he'd been holding his breath.

"You're not mad, then?" he asked.

Virginia looked at him, confused.

"No, Wolf, I'm not mad," she said. "I already knew what happened anyway."

"But . . ."

"My grandmother's the one that lied to me," she explained. "If I'm going to be mad at anyone, it's her."

The scene abruptly cut to Virginia waking up in bed. Both of them watched in silence as it acted out their first meeting. None of it was a surprise - they'd both been there. But it was quite a bit different to sit and watch it knowing what they knew now.

_Cripes!_ thought Wolf. _How could I let that many seconds go by before I realized she was my mate? Oooh, I must have been crazy!_

Virginia sat silently watching the scene unfold, until it got to the part where he'd jumped in front of her when she'd run for the door.

"Oooh, you smell GREAT!" he'd said, then launched into a detailed explanation of exactly why he thought so.

Suddenly she started to laugh again. Just a little at first, then more, then finally, when she saw herself hit him with the vase, she nearly doubled over, gasping. Wolf shut the tape off and held her until she could get her breath.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded furiously.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked. "It was just so much like you . . ."

"It was me," he told her.

"I know." She giggled.

"You're not going to start in again, are you?"

She put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. As they kissed, she moved her hand down his back to stroke his fur.

"Start in again doing what?" she asked devilishly.

He pulled back to look at her.

"Think of the time we could have saved if you'd reacted like this then," he said, teasing her. "But instead, you had to hit me in a very tender place . . ."

She made a face.

"Well, obviously it didn't do any damage!" she declared.

They laughed and kissed again, harder this time. Wolf knew it hadn't been that long ago that he'd decided Virginia shouldn't exert herself, but she seemed very determined. He'd just decided to give in to her when the Murrays burst in the door, a day early.

* * *

Oh, but they _did_ realize they were early, Linda had said. They'd only wanted to get an early start, to make sure they had plenty of time to get everything in perfect shape before tomorrow evening. Suppose Mr. Lewis were to return then? They couldn't be caught neglecting their duties . . .

Virginia knew now, after watching what her father had wished for, that there wouldn't be very much chance of stopping them, so she didn't try. Instead, she'd suggested to Wolf that they go out for the day. But no sooner had the words left her mouth than Wolf mentioned Bear Mountain.

"Oh, Wolf, that's pretty far away from here," she'd told him reluctantly. "We'd need a car to get there."

He'd looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. A sudden gleam had come into his eye and he'd dashed from the room. Virginia knew where he was going, but after discovering that Murray had intended to throw her father and her out on the street, she felt absolutely no guilt about not stopping him. Sure enough, he returned a moment later with Linda in tow.

"_Please_ accept our apologies!" Linda exclaimed. "We really had no idea Mr. Lewis wanted you to have a car at your disposal. Believe me, we'll take care of that oversight _immediately!_"

And she'd reached into her handbag for her ever-present cellphone. Murray had arrived with the Mercedes in less than fifteen minutes.

Wolf had spent the time in the kitchen, overseeing the packing of their picnic lunch. He'd emerged carrying not only the largest picnic basket Virginia had ever seen, but two large grocery bags, stuffed full. Murray'd intercepted him as he'd started for the door.

"Oh, allow me to carry that for you," he'd said. Wolf had readily released the basket.

They were just about to leave when Virginia remembered to program the VCR. She wasn't sure they'd make it back in time and didn't want to chance missing the second episode. When she'd finished setting it up, she'd wanted to impress upon the Murrays how important it was that the show not be missed, so she'd told them she was taping it at her father's request.

"Oh, what show is it?" Linda had breathlessly asked, although she'd gotten everyone's attention for her announcement. Virginia had told them and left. After seeing the reverent response they gave to anything her father wanted, she had no doubt the show would get taped even if the VCR suddenly broke and they had to run out and buy a new one. So she promptly forgot about it.

Virginia had decided to take the parkways through Westchester rather than follow along the river through the many little towns. Not only would it be faster, she'd thought, it would also appear to get them out in the country more quickly. She knew Wolf missed the real outdoors, although he'd never said so to her. At his suggestion, it had become their habit to go for a long walk in Central Park at least twice a day, and he usually played a game with himself of trying to find yet another location where you couldn't tell you were in a planned park - if you didn't look up, that is, and assuming you couldn't hear. _Or smell_, she added with a grin, glancing sideways at her passenger, who was now staring transfixed out the side window. She couldn't really blame him - in her opinion, fall was the most beautiful of all the seasons in this part of the country. In mid-September, the trees had just barely begun to color, giving only a hint of what would come, the only exception being the deep scarlet of the sumacs. Along most of the Taconic, where they now drove, the suburbs of northern Westchester lay so deeply buried in the trees as to seem non-existent. This effect was further enhanced by the buffer zone of trees lining the road, so that they appeared to be driving through a vast forested area. The hills in the distance still showed mostly green, dotted here and there with an occasional minor burst of yellow or orange from an early turning beech or sugar maple, and fringed along the highway were the scarlet sumacs, looking even more intense against the green background. The sky was a crisp, clear blue, cloudless and serene.

They had just reached the Croton Reservoir when Wolf asked if they could just stop where they were. She hated having to tell him it was all an illusion, since she knew he was dying to run through the woods. Briefly, she wondered, as she had before, if there might be some connection between what was wrong with him and being forced (however willingly) to stay shut up in a city, away from the wild. But, as she had earlier, she quickly dismissed the idea. If that sort of thing were affecting him, it would have been much worse for him in the prison, and she believed, quite rightly, his claim that it had never happened to him before.

_Stop worrying!_ she told herself sternly. _You promised yourself you wouldn't. He'll be all right._

At least it wouldn't be that much farther until they got there. She told Wolf as much.

They'd turned off the Taconic and driven west, past the usual strip shopping centers and neighborhoods of suburbia, until they reached the head of the Bear Mountain Parkway. Virginia turned right, onto it, and they descended into the deep valley of the Hudson River, passing the decaying remains of a long-abandoned stone tollhouse before they crossed the bridge and entered the state park.

They stopped in a small trailhead parking lot off a park road and got out of the car. The forest stretched out before them, dark and quiet, but for the intermittent hum and buzz of occasional insects. Its smell, a mixture of hemlock, wet leaves and earth, stirred Virginia's memory of that day, less than a month before, when they'd played hide and seek in the woods outside Wendell's castle. And, like those woods, this forest was carpeted with a lush expanse of wood fern, not yet gone dormant for the winter. She remembered how she'd felt that day, at once terrified and insanely happy. Having once found the courage to openly declare her love for him, she'd wanted more, everything, all that went with that, as if her heart, once released from the pressure of its confinement, would continue expanding indefinitely. And still there had been the ghosts of all those men gone before him who had wanted her, but by virtue of not being the right man, had twisted their disappointment to blame her, to call her unworthy, until she herself had half-believed it. So she had been afraid even as she yielded. Yet Wolf, without even conscious knowledge that he did so, bypassed her fears - first with confusion over the nature of the game he wanted to play, and then with the all-consuming excitement of the hunt.

His fingertips brushed her hand, sending a shiver through her. As their eyes met, she saw that he was remembering the same thing. On an impulse, yielding to the sudden energy that welled within her, she dashed off into the woods.

It took nearly all Wolf's willpower to keep himself from rushing immediately after her. His whole body tensed, coiled to spring, but he forced his muscles to relax a bit, and turned away. Once he'd managed to do that, the waiting was actually much easier than it had been that day (only three weeks ago?) when he couldn't believe she'd actually said yes. He thought he could reasonably give her an honest count of fifty today, if he tried not to dwell too much on it. He'd been completely unrealistic about how long it took to count all the way to a hundred the last time. _Stop thinking about it!_ he thought. The car they'd driven up here, a light blue sedan, made intermittent ticking noises as the hot metal of the motor cooled. He tried to concentrate on that, and on the stench of the heated metal itself mixed with some unidentifiable chemical. Virginia's scent was all over him, except on the clean flannel shirt of Tony's he'd borrowed to wear for this excursion. His mind wondered idly if that would make her trail any harder to follow.

No, he was only going to make it to about twenty-five, he decided. At least this time he hadn't promised her something different. But, conscious also of the presence of other people, out of sight but within at least his own hearing distance, he called out no warning of his departure, as he also had not counted aloud, to Virginia. He simply set off after her, the fire within him building quickly towards a conflagration. He found her in the bower beneath an ancient hemlock tree.

If he had thought it easier to wait for the count, it was at least that much more difficult to control himself once he'd found her. With a monumental effort, he managed to keep from tearing her clothes, though with his first touch, he brought her to the ground, crushing his lips and body hard against her. Virginia made no complaint, pressing herself against him in return as her hands traveled up the fiery flesh beneath his shirt. Her fragrance, mixed with the earthiness of the surrounding forest, brought back to him that very first time they lay together, the joy of release so long denied; the single hunger of the last full moon he could remember; the only hunger he had not been able to satiate. But, as then, it was not hunger which he ultimately fed, but the desire for fulfillment. He had come home.

Afterwards, they rested quietly together, staring up the bole of the huge tree, enjoying the peace as they had not been able to do that time before. Presently they returned to the car and ate lunch, then spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the woods hand in hand, past trickling streams and quiet lakes, stopping occasionally to renew their game of hide and seek, until the sky began to grow dark. Then, their day in the woods at an end, they returned somewhat reluctantly to the city.

Virginia was not surprised to find the Murrays still at work when they returned. Linda met them at the door, but after a perfunctory greeting, both she and Wolf pushed past her, anxious to reach the relative privacy of their bedroom where they could relax. On the way past the living room, however, Virginia was startled to find the VCR not recording as it should have been by that hour. She dived at it, Wolf close behind her, and began frantically punching at it's buttons. In the background, she could hear the sound of Linda's voice, but paid it no attention, other than to silently curse her for forgetting. _I can't believe they didn't make sure this came on,_ she thought, _after I told them it was something Dad really wanted to see! Aren't they supposed to be his slaves? Or is something starting to go wrong with the wish?_

She was vaguely aware of Wolf trying to get her attention. Distractedly, she waved him off, wondering why he couldn't wait until she'd finished re-setting the VCR. Finally he pulled her away from it.

"Virginia," he said.

She started to protest, then saw what he was holding: A DVD set of _The 10__th__ Kingdom_.

"As I was saying," said Linda amicably, "We thought Mr. Lewis would get much more enjoyment out of this than from something full of commercials taped off the television. And the picture quality is much better on a DVD as well. Don't worry," she added, "We made certain it includes the full version of the original show."

_As if it wouldn't?_ thought Virginia idly, as she took the case from Wolf's hands, opened it and looked inside. Finally, she managed to say, "Thank you."

Linda smiled, but made no attempt to leave the room. Virginia took the opportunity to ask her when they planned to leave. As she'd expected, Linda's response was rather vague.

"Oh, well, we have to make sure everything is in perfect order for Mr. Lewis when he returns," she'd said.

Virginia stood up.

"Linda," she said, trying to sound authoritative, though it felt awkward since the woman still towered over her, "Mr. Wolf and I will be going out of town tomorrow morning," - she'd almost said it was to visit her dad, but thought better of it. She was afraid they might try to follow.

"We need to get some rest tonight before we leave, so we would like you ALL to be gone by nine PM at the latest. You will have all day tomorrow to clean this apartment. I _assure_you my father will not be returning until the following day, at the earliest, and probably not even then."

Linda's face had achieved a pinched look while Virginia was speaking. She began to protest, but Wolf cut her off.

"Mr. Lewis wants his daughter to be well-rested," he said smoothly. "As well as well-fed. You will have plenty of time tomorrow to finish working on his home. Right now, we'd like to eat dinner - something simple that can be completely cleaned up before nine."

Virginia had almost begun to protest at Wolf's insistence that the Murrays fix them dinner. She wanted them gone as fast as possible. But she kept quiet because what he'd said had actually gotten through to Linda: she'd agreed to the time restraint Virginia had originally asked for. _So all we have to do is to say that Dad wants it that way?_ she thought. _I guess it did work for that TV program . . . _And she knew Wolf was just trying to make sure she didn't skip any more meals.

So before Linda had left the room she only added quickly, "But nothing greasy or full of fat."

* * *

On the terrace, the evening was slightly cool, but not chilly. They were protected from the breeze on two sides, so that Virginia was quite comfortable in her sweater. Looking out over the sparkling lights of the city, she thought about how she'd always believed she loved living in New York, being where she had access to everything; living in the midst of constant activity. But now, she realized just how much she'd enjoyed her wilderness adventure in the Nine Kingdoms. Despite her anxiety over trying to find a way to get home, sleeping on the ground outdoors, and the lack of plumbing - to say nothing of all the magical mischief she'd had to endure - she missed the sheer, natural wildness of the unspoiled outdoors. And, she had to think, if she felt that way, how much more did Wolf miss it?

She looked back across the table at him. He was staring at her, as usual, with an expression that said he thought she was the only thing around worth seeing._ Maybe that's exactly how he feels,_ she thought. _He may have suggested coming back here, but I know he did it for me. Why didn't I stop to think about what he might have wanted? Where he'd rather live?_ She'd spent the last week in New York doing virtually nothing. In itself, that was nothing to worry about, but she also knew she could no longer envision any kind of future for herself here; it was as if her journey through the portal to the Nine Kingdoms had forever changed her so that she no longer belonged to the mundane world of prosaic reality. She might have returned to New York, but she couldn't go home again. Nor, she suspected, did she really want to.

Her musings were abruptly interrupted by the delicious smell of food. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until now. But then, as she thought about it, she really hadn't had very much to eat that day - just a bowl of fruit for breakfast and what had been packed for their lunch. Not that Wolf hadn't packed a lot, but at the time she hadn't been terribly hungry. At the time she hadn't spent most of the day exercising, either, she thought. The chicken breast and sauteed vegetables being set in front of her now practically made her mouth water, though she knew Wolf would barely consider it an appetizer. He didn't say anything about it, however, and she silently thanked him. She knew he wanted the Murrays gone as quickly as she did.

While they ate, she thought about the trip they were going to make in the morning, only partly surprised now by how much she was looking forward to it. She missed her father, too, she realized. She didn't think she'd ever spent this long a time away from him, though she thought that was probably a little sad: Was she really that tied to his apron strings, as it were, she wondered? He could take care of himself, she supposed. He'd needed her to step away, too. Wolf's statement, of her 'mothering and smothering everyone', although uttered in delirium at Little Lamb Village, came back to haunt her. Maybe she _was_ too much like that. She glanced up at Wolf, who was busy eating. Today - after this morning - had been idyllic. Maybe she was overreacting to whatever it was that was bothering him. _No,_ she decided, _he's worried enough himself to think he needs to go back to the Fourth Kingdom. He said he wouldn't go back unless whatever it is got worse. I can't just brush it off._ She was still thinking about it long after the Murrays had finally left and the two of them had gone to bed.

* * *

Virginia opened her eyes. The room was dark, except for the luminous blue numbers of the clock, which read 2:38. She sighed as she rested her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes again, contemplating whether or not to go back to sleep. _No,_ she thought, _I'd better get up now.__It'll just get worse if I don't. _ She'd drank too much water at dinner the night before, she knew, but she'd been extraordinarily thirsty after her day in the woods. She sat up. It was then that she noticed Wolf was not in bed with her.

Her first reaction was mild panic - _Where is he? What happened? Is he all right? Did something happen? _- brought on by her still worrying about his ailment. She forced herself to be reasonable. _Calm down, Virginia,_ she told herself. _So he got up. So did you._ She walked over to the bedroom door, opened it and looked out. Sure enough, she could see the whitish light from the television flickering from the doorway to the living room. _He's watching that DVD,_ she thought. But he wasn't bothering with sound, or else he had it turned way down. _He probably didn't want to wake me._ Relieved, she went back to the bathroom, then padded out into the hall.

She stopped in the middle of the archway into the living room. Both the television and Wolf were sideways to her, so that she had a clear view of both. She got a general impression of ropes snapping from the TV, then heard Wolf whine, and looked at him.

He hadn't seen her. He was too absorbed in what he was watching, studying the remote control and pressing its buttons. Vaguely, Virginia realized he was rewinding the scene that took place after she'd tied him up in the barn. Of how he'd gotten free.

The rewound frame stopped on him, still tied to the post. Then it started forward. Virginia stared at it, horrified. He'd been in agony, writhing, delirious or nearly so. A lump formed in her throat as tears clouded her eyes. She blinked them away, seeing then the trough of water near him come to life. It assumed her mother's face. Virginia read his lips as he saw it: No! Her mother spoke. His face crumpled, sweating, he answered again, full of pain: _NO!!_ She heard him that time, faintly - the sound was not completely off. Though she knew the events she was seeing were long past, her stomach began twisting in a knot again she watched his suffering. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Why hadn't she stayed with him, she wondered? Why hadn't she realized how much pain he was in? The Wolf on the television gritted his teeth against the agony, whipping his head from side to side to shake it off, perspiration flying from his sweat-soaked hair, as the Wolf watching whimpered once again. Then she saw the change: Saw the muscles of his face stretch into an inhuman position, saw the sharpened canine teeth grow longer, saw the ropes break across his chest. His eyes an alien, glowing red, he snarled into the camera. Her Wolf was a werewolf.


	4. III Return to the Kingdoms

III - Return to the Kingdoms

He'd been watching the scene over and over for quite awhile, wondering how he was going to survive having Virginia see it. A vague plan had formed in his mind of somehow managing to show the program only to Wendell when his ears caught the sharp hiss of indrawn breath. He jerked his head towards it, horrified to see Virginia standing in the doorway, staring wide-eyed at the television, her face white. He felt as if his entire body had turned to lead. She had seen it. She knew.

It seemed to him that Virginia stood there, motionless, staring at the television for long minutes. Then she turned to look at him. He began to shake uncontrollably as he envisioned what she would do next: run, screaming for the door or cower away from him, flinching at his touch. It wasn't until he ran out of air that he noticed he'd forgotten to even breathe.

He tried to say her name, but no sound came out. He struggled with himself, trying to gasp, sob, anything, but nothing would come. Then he could no longer even see.

She was there, then, beside him, holding him. He shuddered, gasping, his breath a ragged panting as he clung to her in desperation, tears stinging his eyes and flowing down his cheeks. Through it all, he could think of nothing but that she hadn't run away. _She hadn't run away._

* * *

Virginia sat on the sofa and held him, her mind still reeling from the discovery. _This is what he's been hiding!_ she thought. _His deep, dark secret that he couldn't share._ Instinctively, she suddenly understood why: he'd been terrified she would leave him. The realization nearly undid her; she understood so well what he was feeling that she almost lost herself in sympathetic reaction. She imagined what he must have thought she would do: run away in fear, never to return, and yes, to the nearest abortion clinic. Her own tears flowed unchecked as she held him tighter, her eyes shut, murmuring, "I'm right here, I'm right here", over and over like a litany.

His fears were in no way founded. Her reaction at seeing the truth about him graphically depicted on the television was not one of shock and fearfulness, but more of incredulity that she hadn't figured it out before. After all, the signs had all been there for her to see, she just hadn't believed them. Werewolves didn't exist. All her schooling said so. But if she had accepted the Nine Kingdoms and all it's impossibilities, why not that? The discovery raised a lot of questions, yes, but this wasn't the time to ask them. He had first to be convinced that she would stay. That would take work, she knew, but she could do it. He had, for her. And right now, he just needed to be held.

In a few moments, after the worst of his shaking had calmed, she reached over and turned on the lamp, then shut off the TV. He laid back a bit on the sofa, staring at her reverently as if he couldn't quite believe she was really there. He raised his hand to touch her face and she caught it and pressed it to her cheek.

"I'm right here," she repeated again. "And I'm not going away. I love you."

She saw his eyes fill with tears again. She stood and, slowly, led him by the hand into the bedroom and set him down on the bed. After turning on the lamp, she climbed into bed after him and held him beside her there until he finally fell asleep, exhausted.

* * *

King Wendell Winston Walter White, grandson of Snow White, and ruler of the Fourth Kingdom, sat at the desk in his ornately appointed office and rubbed his eyes. He was barely twenty-one years old and had been coronated less than a month before. Two days following that, he had issued what he'd thought was a progressive and forward-looking decree. But now, after a period of reflection, he was having second thoughts about it.

The decree actually did nothing more than prevent his half-wolf subjects from being imprisoned (or executed) without a fair trial. That's what he kept telling himself. But what he had failed to see (and he felt it was his failing as a ruler) was the effect that ruling would have on his other subjects. Already he had received an enormous number of petitions (he'd stopped counting at fifty) asking him to rescind the pardon. The vast majority of them were from people frightened out of their wits. And he really couldn't blame them.

The full moon was only three days away. People were panicking at the thought of what even one half-wolf run amok would do, let alone their entire population. Always before, the unwritten rule that a wolf was always guilty of any crime that appeared to have been committed by one had kept them, for the most part, in line. Hidden for most of the month by a disguise of normality, many people believed they had kept their natures secret only by physical restraint during the full moon. But with this new decree, the arguments ran, would there be any incentive for them to remain in hiding?

Wendell frowned. Most - well, virtually all - of the complaints had listed the usual widely accepted catalogue of the undesirable traits of wolfs in order to support their argument. The trouble was, having spent an entire month (including the full moon) in the company of a wolf, he knew that most of those traits were simply untrue. Even unrestrained during the full moon Wolf had never hurt anyone. Wendell himself had helped to prove his innocence in the murder of that girl. In fact, it had been that very incident which had brought to his attention the need for some sort of legislation to protect the half-wolfs in the first place. He simply hadn't realized it until later, when Wolf had surprised everyone (he thought) by doing the honorable thing and preventing all the heads of state from being poisoned (one of the supposed traits of wolfs was their complete lack of honor). Wendell had realized only then that it hadn't been the first time Wolf's behavior hadn't followed his low expectations. So he had devised the pardon. None of the dignitaries present at his coronation (whose lives Wolf had incidentally saved) had ventured to oppose it, including Riding Hood, though she hadn't bothered to stay for the award ceremony. But he understood now that they were only waiting to see him hoist by his own petard. And there was nothing he could do about it. If he rescinded the pardon before the full moon, he'd only succeed in appearing weak while not even giving the wolfs the chance he thought they deserved. But if the full moon brought out the worst of the wolfs' behavior and people were hurt or killed, then he, Wendell, would be responsible for their suffering. So there was nothing left for him to do but pray that the wolfs would restrain themselves as they always had - and worry.

His brooding was interrupted by a servant who brought him the news that "Lady Virginia and her companion" had arrived. Upon questioning, Wendell discovered that Virginia and Wolf had been taken to a private chamber to refresh themselves while they awaited the King's favor. This statement had the effect of exasperating the young king.

"The Lady Virginia is my stepsister," he declared. "She does not need to 'wait upon my favor!' She may see me any time she cares to, unless I've given orders to the contrary."

The servant bowed low.

"Yes, sire," he said. "About her companion, sire . . ."

It was on the tip of Wendell's tongue to say, 'What about him?', but he was too tired of officially arguing about the rights of half-wolfs to bring that into the conversation when it wasn't strictly necessary. Instead he said, "Anyone in my stepsister's company is to be accorded the same privilege as she."

The servant nodded, bowed, and began to leave. Wendell stopped him.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"Sire?"

"What room have you put them in?"

The man looked shocked that his king wished to find someone himself instead of waiting for them to come to him, but provided the information. Wendell smiled to himself as he climbed the three sets of stairs to their room - the same room they'd occupied before leaving for Virginia's world. The indignant expression the servant had worn when confronted with his king's insistence upon throwing formality out the window reminded him forcibly of Rupert. Only Rupert would have argued with him about it. _Ah, well_, he thought, _he'll unbend a bit eventually.__It'll just take time. Not like getting changed into a dog._ But right now Rupert was gone, away at his hold like all the lords, to protect the people under his care in case any problems arose during this month's full moon. Wendell sighed and kept climbing.

The door was shut. _Well, really, did you expect it to be wide open, Wendell?_ he asked himself. He rapped on the door hesitantly, not liking to think what he might be interrupting. Just before they'd left, Wendell knew Virginia had accepted Wolf's ring, and though he no longer doubted the half-wolf's honor, he didn't really want to see any graphic evidence of their passion. But when Virginia opened the door he had to admit she didn't look in the least bit ravished.

"Wendell!" she cried, surprised to see him.

"Hello, Virginia," he said, thinking how much better she looked than the last time he'd seen her. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever seen her this full of life before. Not that she was bouncy or anything as Wolf was - she just had that look of absolute purpose and determination he'd seen on her fleetingly in the past, along with something else he couldn't quite define. Wolf had been right, returning to her home had helped her tremendously.

She gave him a brief hug, invited him in and closed the door behind him. It was then that he saw Wolf. And was as surprised by his lifelessness as he had been by Virginia's vibrancy. Though, to be fair, he thought, it wasn't as if Wolf could be called lifeless by normal standards. It was simply that he was no longer so energetic. And was there something otherwise odd about him as well, he wondered? Wendell didn't know. Wolf had been sitting on the bed, and had risen when the king had walked into the room, though his eyes had rested on Virginia until the door had closed. Then he nodded to Wendell.

"Your majesty," he said by way of greeting.

_No, he sounds perfectly normal,_ thought Wendell. _Maybe I'm just imagining things._

"Wolf," he said, nodding in return.

Wolf walked over and stood beside Virginia. She put her arm around his waist and they all stood there for a moment, looking at each other awkwardly.

"What's brought you back?" asked Wendell, finally. He wished he was a better conversationalist. It wasn't something he had to be as King; the members of his court were supposed to excel at that. Wendell had been so long without a real family that he'd never bothered to learn it. _Well, now I have a sister, so I'd better start,_ he thought.

Virginia had looked up at Wolf, then gone to rummage in one of the two duffelbags they'd brought. Wolf was no help, either. He simply stared after Virginia, silently. Part of Wendell thought this odd. He remembered the half-wolf almost as being a chatterbox, but then he'd never had a chance to be alone in their company after he'd returned to human form. And when he'd been a dog, they hadn't been able to understand him.

Finally, Virginia returned with a fold of blue-colored paperboard. She handed it to him. He looked at it. _The 10__th__ Kingdom_, it read, just above a picture of a castle, and right across the face of a troll. Wendell realized then that it opened like a book. Inside were two flat, round objects, recessed in. One had a picture on it that repeated the motif on the cover. The other appeared to be a mirror. _More magic?_ he wondered as he looked up.

"It's a play," explained Wolf. "Preserved so it can be watched whenever a person wants."

"And it's the story of our adventure in the Nine Kingdoms," Virginia told him. "Beginning when my mother got out of prison."

Wendell was stunned.

"They can write plays and record them that quickly?" he asked.

"No, they can't," she said. "That's the point. This was made before our adventure ever began. Here," - she turned it over and pointed to the bottom of the back cover - "See, it's dated. They always date these things the year they're made. In my world, this is last year's date."

He gave it a cursory glance. The number itself was meaningless, but what Virginia was saying about it seemed incredible.

"How is that possible?" he asked.

"It isn't," she said. "That's what we don't understand."

"It's some kind of magic," said Wolf simply.

Wendell was not surprised.

Virginia turned to look at her fiance.

"But there isn't any magic in my world," she argued.

"The dragon dung bean still worked," he pointed out. "So did the dog spell on the king, here. He didn't change back just because he went through the portal."

"But we can't _do_ magic there," Virginia insisted. "From our point of view, it's all only in stories told to entertain children. Make-believe."

"Oh!" said Wolf, "The stories! Yes, you said that the whole history of our Golden Age is told as a make-believe story! So is . . ."

"Really?" asked Wendell, interrupting him. _What a strange thing,_ he thought. "Well, could this just be more of the same, then?"

"That_ is _what I was going to say," Wolf muttered.

"No," said Virginia. "No, it can't. Dad and I found out how that happened. There's an inscription on a beam in one of the cells of the dungeon here by the man who wrote those stories. So we know how they got to my world."

"The dungeon in this palace?" asked Wendell.

"Yes, in the cell the Huntsman put us in. I'm sure that must be in this too." She pointed to the recorded play Wendell still held.

"Well, how would _he_ have gotten here?"

"Through one of the mirrors?" asked Wolf, as if the answer to Wendell's question should have been obvious. Wendell got the impression he'd just barely stopped short of rolling his eyes. Suddenly he remembered why it had taken so long for him to warm to Wolf in the first place. If he'd ever warmed to him, that is. _Still,_ he thought, _Virginia is engaged to him._ And that thought reminded him of what Antony had said at the trial in Little Lamb Village, when Wendell had thought Wolf obviously guilty of murder: _Virginia believes in him. And I believe in Virginia._ Virginia had been right then, and her faith had later saved the lives of over two hundred people. Wolf was an honorable fellow. _An honorable fellow who grates on my nerves,_ he thought. _But I need to be civil to him, even if its only for Virginia's sake. He's going to be my brother-in-law. _He blanched. _Why did I have to think of that?_ he wondered dismally. Quickly, he fastened his attention on Virginia.

"You said you were sure that must be in this play," he stated. "You don't know it for a fact?"

"No, we . . . haven't watched the whole thing yet," she admitted.

"Then how do you know the whole thing is about our adventure?" he asked.

"Because," Wolf told him, "It came with a list of scenes." He bent over the duffel himself, reached in and started drawing out articles of clothing, tossing them casually aside. "It's in here somewhere," he announced.

Virginia watched him with dismay, though she said nothing. Most, if not all, of the clothing appeared to be hers.

"Never mind, Wolf," said Wendell. "I believe you."

Wolf kept digging.

"I said I believe you," he repeated, louder this time.

Virginia put her hand on Wolf's shoulder just as he extracted a small sheet of blue paper from the bag. Wendell took it from his outstretched hand.

"Thank you," he said, glancing at it perfunctorily. "I suppose the thing to do, then, is for us to watch it to see if there's anything we can discover from the play's content?"

They both agreed.

"Well, then, let's see it," he said. "How does it work?"

"It only works on a machine that only works in Virginia's world," said Wolf.

Wendell thought a moment, following through the chain of conditions.

"Oh," he finally said. "Then we'd need to go there, wouldn't we?" Only that would present a problem, he thought.

Virginia and Wolf exchanged glances, and Wendell had it again. The same odd impression he'd gotten upon seeing Wolf when he'd first come in. Almost as if Wolf were enduring a fleeting moment of pain. Wendell had opened his mouth to explain why he couldn't possibly leave the kingdom right away, but stopped. If he let it pass, he might not have a better chance to find out what was going on.

"Was there something else?" he asked. They both stared at him somewhat uncomfortably. He took a deep breath, determined to find out. "Is something wrong?"

Virginia glanced at Wolf, then back to Wendell.

"There's something wrong with Wolf," she finally said. "He's not well."

Wendell looked at him questioningly. In reaction, Wolf's eyes suddenly blazed.

"It's just my cycle, okay?" he said irritably, biting off the words. "It's messed up. Does that satisfy your curiosity?" He shuddered then, glancing quickly to Virginia, his expression suddenly contrite. "Oh, cripes, Virginia," he said, sounding miserable. "I'm so sorry." He found her arm almost blindly with his hand and squeezed it. She reached up and squeezed him back. He let her go and sat down on the edge of the bed, putting his head in his hands. Wendell could see that he was shaking.

Wolf's emotional state disquieted him. He'd never seen the entire effect of the full moon on the half-wolf; he'd been turned to gold at the time, and though he could hear perfectly well, his attention had been rather wasted on fuming to himself about his predicament. Then again, most of his time during the beginning of the harvest festival in Little Lamb Village, he'd been carted everywhere Antony went. And Antony didn't spend a great deal of time around Wolf. Wendell began to wonder now if he wouldn't have been wiser to witness first hand exactly what the full moon could do to a half-wolf before issuing his proclamation - after all, Wolf would have been perfectly satisfied to get a medal. But he tried to keep all these thoughts out of his expression when he looked at Virginia.

"We had to come back," she said. "We have to find him some help."

"Of course," he agreed, though he wondered privately how that would be possible. Though, possibly because of the pardon, some half-wolf doctor _. . . healer? . . . shaman?_ might come forward. Or perhaps Wolf knew how to find one in any case. He supposed they must have some method for that, though he knew the common perception was that any half-wolfs who were sick or injured were killed (and possibly eaten) by the rest. Wendell supposed he was about to find out the truth (though, to be fair, he'd never believed they were cannibals, except possibly during the full moon). "What do you plan to do?" he asked.

There was another awkward silence while Virginia looked down at Wolf, who was still sitting on the bed. He didn't seem to notice, just turned his head and stared out the window. She laid her hand on his shoulder and looked back at Wendell.

"We wanted to ask you if we could use one of the cells in your dungeon," she said. Wolf flinched as she said it, but made no comment. "Just during the full moon," she added.

That was not at all what Wendell needed to hear. If Wolf, whom he knew and trusted (if he didn't entirely like) needed to be locked away in order to control himself, what would a weaker individual be likely to do? He had to struggle to keep his dismay from showing.

"Yes, of course," he agreed.

"Thank you," she said, though he noticed she seemed somewhat hesitant. Wendell wondered if she could tell how upset he was. He hoped not.

"Was there something else?" he asked.

"Well," she began, "Would you mind very much if we stayed here until then? I know it's three days away, but . . ." she stopped and looked down at Wolf, who appeared to be resolutely not looking at anyone, then continued, "He's really not well at all. And if something happened in my world, I don't know how I'd find help."

He wondered eerily what she meant by 'something happening', but he merely said, "Certainly you can." If Virginia was afraid of something Wolf might do it was even worse than Wendell thought. But he realized that her request also meant there would be no need to explain why he himself couldn't travel. Even though he was fairly well convinced by now that he'd have to rescind the pardon, he wouldn't need to tell them so. Not yet, at any rate. Not until after the full moon.

* * *

_Well, that's done at least,_ thought Wendell as he left his secretary to draft the statement he'd just dictated. _Though they're not going to like it._ He'd decided to stop wasting his time hearing petitions from people who wanted the wolf pardon rescinded as soon as he'd firmly come to the conclusion that he'd wait until after the full moon before acting. When it came right down to it, he thought he'd rather be considered wrong than to be considered weak. His youth might excuse the wrong. Weakness was eternal. He only hoped no one would have to die to preserve his image.

As he passed the main audience chamber he thought he heard voices coming from within it. _Oh, no,_ he thought. _Not more petitions against the wolfs' pardon. Who's let them in?_ He was in a hurry to get to the luncheon he'd scheduled with Virginia and Wolf, and had a fleeting thought of quickly slipping past hoping not to be noticed. But a quick glance around showed him he was alone in the main passage. And he couldn't just let petitioners run wild around the palace. _Where's a servant when you need one? _he wanted to know. _Someone's going to hear about this . . ._

He rounded the corner into the audience hall and came face to face with Wolf.

"Oh, huff, puff! Here he is," said the half-wolf. "So where is the food?"

"Food?" Wendell was really taken aback. Wolf was the last person he'd expected to see.

"Yes, you invited us to lunch!"

"Wolf," said Virginia, "I told you, we're in the wrong place."

Wolf replied to her. Wendell could hear his voice. But he had absolutely no idea what he was saying because all of his attention was suddenly focused on the large oval mirror hanging at the south end of the great hall: his coronation gift from the dwarves of Dragon Mountain. It held Virginia's reflection, though she wasn't looking at it, but rather off to one side, at Wolf. She was dressed now in a pale blue morning-dress in the Fourth Kingdom style. And she was not enormously, but certainly unmistakably, pregnant.

"Wendell?" she asked.

He tore his eyes from her reflection just in time to see her turn to look at it. Her mouth dropped open and she glanced instantly down at her middle, her hand flying up to touch her still quite flat stomach. Slowly, her eyes looked back up at her reflection, her brow furrowed. Then, suddenly, a look of realization came into her face.

"Oh!" she said. "Is that the Mirror of Truth?"

* * *

They were already nearly through the first course of the meal and Wendell's mind was still reeling from Virginia's casual attitude towards her pregnancy. He had gotten over wondering _when_ it had happened - well, actually, no he hadn't. Was it in Kissingtown or later, after the coronation - in his own palace, he wondered? But he did concede that _that_ - at least now after the fact - was none of his business. What was his business was getting his ruined step-sister married as quickly as possible. Yet he'd quickly come to realize that his attempts to force her to see the seriousness of her situation did nothing more than irritate her, though Wolf had remained strangely silent on the subject, he thought. He decided to try a different tactic.

"Virginia," he began, "I'm truly sorry if I've offended you, and I realize that your personal life is none of my business" - here he expected a comment from the half-wolf and was surprised when none was forthcoming - "but I want you to understand that I do think of you as my sister and I only want the best for you."

Virginia laid the soup spoon she was holding down in its saucer.

"I know, Wendell," she said. "It's just that the customs of my world are very different from this one. Making sure I'm married before the baby is born just isn't my highest priority right now. After all, it isn't as if Wolf would desert me - I know he wouldn't . . ."

"Of course not!" Wolf interjected, apparently aghast that anyone should even consider it.

" . . . So I can't see the enormous importance attached to having a piece of paper that says so," she finished.

"Well, regardless of what is customary in _your_world," he began, privately wondering what sort of place of iniquity her world was and that maybe he should be glad he had visited it while only a dog, "_Here_we have a very strict moral sense and a young lady who is pregnant is expected to be married. Even if it's not something you personally care about, Wolf is from this world, and your father lives here now as well. Think of them."

"Oh, Virginia," declared Wolf, finally joining in the discussion as Wendell thought he ought to have been doing all along, "I don't care so much about what people think! It's just that I want our baby to have a father!"

She stared straight ahead across the table at nothing in particular.

"Will you both please leave me alone about it?" she demanded quietly. "It's my decision. I won't be forced into it."

Wendell realized he was pushing her too hard, and that if he kept on he would only succeed in angering her. But he fumed, nonetheless, at how intractable she seemed under the circumstances. _Why does she have to be so stubborn?_ he wondered._ She doesn't have all that much time to get herself married before her condition becomes obvious!_

Wolf was staring down into his soup, dejected, as Wendell considered he had every right to be. Virginia seemed to notice this, too, because she suddenly apologized and said, "I'm sorry, it's just that I never envisioned myself married. And I don't want to feel like it's something I'm being forced to do for the wrong reason."

She put her hand on Wolf's and he looked up at her.

"It's nothing to do with you," she went on, "I love you. It's just me, okay?"

Wolf took her hand and squeezed it, though he said nothing, just stared lovingly at her face.

Wendell watched the two of them together and mentally rolled his eyes, though he kept his face impassive. _This is worse than having to control my expressions in front of petitioners!_ he thought. _At least there the ultimate decision is always mine!_ This line of thought, however, made him suddenly understand that in this case it was he who was in the position of petitioner. And he knew how he would react to someone coming in and ordering him about, even if the order were reasonable. He realized he'd have to change his approach somewhat if he expected to ever sway her.

"Virginia," he said, "I am sorry. I didn't realize until now that I was essentially trying to force you into anything. I will _try_ not to do it in the future. But may I make a suggestion in case you_should_decide to marry?"

She looked somewhat confused, and, he suspected, a trifle suspicious of what he'd said, though he certainly couldn't blame her. He'd react the same way if a previously forceful petitioner suddenly appeared to give in as much as he had just done. But she only said, "Yes, go ahead."

"I should like it very much if you would agree to have the ceremony here," he told her.

"Here?" she asked. "In the Fourth Kingdom, you mean, or . . . ?"

"Here at the palace," he clarified. "You are my step-sister, after all, and both of you are heroes of the Nine Kingdoms. It would only be fitting for you to have a state wedding."

He'd expected the offer to flatter her and spark her imagination. He remembered being in some dancing and deportment classes with his cousins when he was younger, and how the girls had seemed to prattle on endlessly about their own future weddings, what the colors would be, who would be there, how everything would look _ad infinitum_, while their maids had all sighed and wished their own weddings could be as grand. Virginia, however, merely looked at him in horror.

"A state wedding?" she whispered. He could even hear dread in her voice. Only then did it occur to him that a woman who had never wished to be married in the first place might be a bit apprehensive about taking that step in one of the world's largest weddings. To make matters worse, even Wolf seemed taken aback by the idea.

"I wanted my family to be there," he said simply.

It was on the tip of Wendell's tongue to say there was no reason why they could not, when he remembered that he would in all likelihood be rescinding the pardon the wolfs had been granted. And even if Virginia were to agree to a date before the following full moon, he couldn't ask Wolf's family to openly declare their status just before the pardon terminated. Such an act would amount to entrapment. Fortunately he was saved from needing to comment by Wolf's next statement:

"Most of my family live in the Second Kingdom," he said. "If they appear in public as wolfs, even here, they'll be subject to persecution when they go home."

"Yes," agreed Virginia, "If we do get married, I'd certainly want Wolf's family to attend without putting themselves in danger."

Wendell thought a moment.

"If I were to think of some way to keep Wolf's family safe - a way satisfactory to Wolf - would you agree to it then?" he asked, adding hurriedly, "Provided the ceremony was kept small."

Virginia stared at him levelly.

"Very small," she said. "Our families and a couple of friends, nothing more."

Wendell nodded, privately much more satisfied than he appeared. If Virginia was going to argue about the size of the guest list, then she was already considering the possibility of marriage. He'd managed to plant the seed. Now all he had to do was devise some way of shielding Wolf's family. He sighed, realizing that no matter what plan he came up with, the both of them would hate him in the end when the pardon was rescinded, and that if Virginia didn't agree to set a date within the next month, the entire scenario he'd built up for her would fall apart.

* * *

Virginia sat cross-legged on the cot in front of Wolf's cell, dressed in her cotton batiste nightgown and blue chenille robe, still needing the quilt from the bed pulled up around her for warmth. The dungeon was chilly and damp, more so than she remembered, though she supposed it was only natural now with summer virtually gone by. Wolf, however, didn't seem to notice the chill in the air. She could see him, just his head and shoulders, sitting on the floor in the corner on the far side of the cell already sweating profusely, his breathing labored. A slight breeze wafted in from the tiny barred window and Virginia worried that, as wet as he was, he would become sick in a more prosaic way from the cold. She acknowledged, however, that there was nothing she could do about that; nothing she could do about any of it except be here with him.

For the past four days she hadn't left his sight. That was the promise she'd made to herself, if not to him. She knew he'd needed her there, though. He'd been much more physical than he usually was - which was saying a lot - touching her at every opportunity, needing that contact throughout the night even as they slept. It was one more reassurance that she was really still there, with him; that she hadn't left when she found out. But Virginia knew it wasn't over - that it wouldn't be over until after the full moon had passed. He had to know she could see everything, witness the entire transformation and all that went with it in person - not just as a special effect in a fantasy tale - and still stay. She knew, from the way he'd held her just before he locked himself in the cell, that he didn't yet believe she really would: He'd closed his eyes and hugged her as hard as he could for the longest time, and she could feel him shaking with emotion. Then, as they parted, he'd gazed at her face as if he weren't sure when he'd ever see her again.

He'd gone into the cell then. Gone in and changed his clothes, so, he said, her scent would not be there to tempt him. He was afraid of it setting him off, he told her; afraid of some extreme reaction with his cycle so unpredictable. That was also why he'd gone to sit in the farthest corner from her, under the window.

He'd chosen this particular cell three days ago, when Wendell was still trying not so subtly to plan their marriage for them. Wolf had wanted the window for the ventilation, but he hadn't wanted a view of the moon at any time of night, so the window faced north. After selecting it, he'd tested every bar, both in the window and in the dungeon door. When he was satisfied they'd hold, Wendell ordered the cots installed: one outside the cell for Virginia, another identical to it inside for Wolf (though for something called a cot they more nearly resembled a queen-sized bed, she thought). There was little for them to do then but wait.

Most of the waiting time had been spent alone in their chamber since whenever they ventured out, Wendell would pop up with some 'hypothetical' wedding plan he wanted Virginia's opinion on. Virginia had wanted to ask Wolf more about his family; she had so much yet to learn about him - but he would only turn her questions aside, saying they'd wait until later. It hurt her, because she knew what he really meant: that he suspected there might not be a later, that his sharing would come to nothing, and that the less said the better. So their conversation was restricted to pleasantries and discussion only of the present - nothing of the past, or the future. Not that Wolf needed to speak in order to communicate; Virginia had learned that the day he'd found her in the swamp, been surprised at how uncharacteristically quiet he could be, though maybe it simply hadn't been until then that she'd been able to listen. Now she could. She could feel everything as he felt it and she hurt along with him. But there had been nothing they could do except wait. She was very glad the waiting was nearly over.

This morning he'd wanted to shut himself in the cell immediately, but she had convinced him to wait until he felt at least one of the symptoms. So the day went by much as had the previous two, with nothing in it to really remark on. They'd eaten lunch in their chamber and dinner with Wendell. Wolf became neither feverish nor argumentative. The only out-of-the-ordinary occurrences were the looks that both the servants - and Wendell - threw in Wolf's direction: From the servants, Virginia read apprehension and fear; from Wendell, curious speculation. She knew Wolf had read them too.

After dinner Wolf insisted he be locked away. The meal had been served much earlier this evening than usual, so that it was still an hour away from sundown - and moonrise - when it ended. All of them, Wolf, Virginia, Wendell, and two servants, had traipsed down into the dungeon together as if locking him up were some sort of processional ceremony. Just before entering the cell, Wolf had turned to Wendell.

"I'll need to eat," he said simply, his voice and manner weary as they had been much of the day, "A lot."

Wendell nodded, and gestured to the two servants.

"These two will bring you whatever you need," he said.

Wolf's eyes shifted to the servants and Virginia could see they were nearly in a panic. She knew Wolf couldn't have missed seeing it either, but all he said was, "I'll need fresh meat. Lamb or mutton is best, but any kind of meat will do, just so it's very fresh. Still alive would be preferable, but there's no way to get it into the cell without opening the door, so as close to being alive as possible. Definitely still warm and I don't mean cooked. Is that clear?"

They'd nodded, still quite overcome with terror; Wolf's description of what he needed had only added to their nervousness. With a quick glance in Wendell's direction for dismissal, they beat a path back up to the main floor, barely managing not to run.

Wolf had then turned to Virginia to say goodbye. That's what it was, she thought, even though neither of them was leaving the other's sight. She remembered how he'd taken her face in his hands and seemed to be memorizing it.

"Are you starting to feel it yet?" she'd asked

He'd shaken his head.

"No," he'd said. "But I don't want to wait any longer. After the moon comes up . . ."

He hadn't finished, just looked away for a moment before taking her in his arms and crushing her to him. When they parted, he'd gazed longingly at her, then stepped backwards into the cell. Wendell closed the gated door, locked it, and handed Virginia the key. Then he'd left, and they were alone together on opposite sides of the bars.

Wolf had changed his clothes and gone immediately to the far side of the cell. She had changed into her nightclothes and climbed into bed while it was still daylight. The moon had been up for over two hours before he'd begun to be affected by it.

She now watched him press as much of his feverish body as he could against the cool stones of the wall and wondered, as she had for the last four days, if the child she was carrying would have to go through that kind of agony every month. It wasn't something she felt she could ask Wolf quite yet, however. In the state he was in, he was far too likely to take any questions she had about the baby's nature in the worst possible light. Thinking back over the last few days since she'd discovered his secret, she suddenly realized that the only time he'd mentioned the baby in all that time was at the first luncheon they'd had with Wendell. Nor had he caressed it as he had so frequently before. _He's already giving it up,_ she thought. A weight settled on her chest and she felt her eyes start to burn. At the far end of the cell, Wolf shifted position. He didn't look at her, hadn't looked at her since he'd gone in. Nor had he spoken beyond telling her once that he thought it would be better if she remained silent.

It would all be over in two days. She had to think of that, try to focus on it. Her father should be arriving about then, as well, she thought. Wendell had sent for him the day they'd arrived, and had estimated the time it would take for her dad to receive the message and return from Kissingtown, where he'd gone to research some material for his bouncy castles, to be about five or six days. She'd missed seeing him. It had been a tremendous disappointment to her when Wendell had told her he was so far away, though it had meant she could put off for awhile telling him about the baby. That wasn't going to be easy. If left to herself, she'd probably put off telling him until it became obvious, only she knew Wolf wouldn't be able to wait that long. He was too excited.

_Not any more._ The thought crept in, demanding attention. _Live in the present, Virginia._ It was a familiar litany, well-worn. She'd said it to herself countless times in the years since her mother had left. But she'd thought it finally gone, buried, no longer necessary. Her eyes clouded over with tears. She reached up to brush them away.

Opposite her, in the corner of the cell under the window, Wolf moaned. She looked up. His eyes were tightly shut, his face twisted in a grimace as he clutched his stomach. His cramps had begun. She remembered his cramps from the last time, at Little Lamb Village; brutal, intense, and agonizing. Fortunately they hadn't seemed to last long. _Not to me they didn't,_ she realized. _I didn't stay with him. I went to eat with Dad. It was at least thirty minutes before he joined us, maybe more. To him it must have seemed like hours._ But the recollection also made her wonder if she should give the signal for his food now. He'd been ravenous when the pain had finally left him.

He cried out again, then gasped. She could just barely see him, lying on the floor, bent nearly double._ No,_ she thought. _No food yet._ At this stage the smell might only make him nauseous, she decided. It would her. She got up, put on her slippers, and walked over to the cell. Sweat poured from him as he wrestled with his pain. Not for the first time, she wondered exactly what was causing his cramps in the first place.

Her hands fastened on the bars. Wolf's breathing was stentorian. Subconsciously, Virginia matched it. A cramp seized him and he bit his lip, holding his breath until it passed. Virginia held her breath with him, her knuckles turning white where her fingers grasped the bars of the cell. She shivered slightly, unsure if it was from the cold or not. Another spasm began building slowly, until it formed a rock-hard ball inside her. Abruptly she jerked her hands from the bars and backed up, gasping, half bent over, clutching herself. Then, slowly, it washed away and she was able to find the bed and climb up on it before another started in to replace it. As it did, she whimpered and cried out loud, more from knowledge of what had to be happening to her than from pain. She was losing the baby.

* * *

Virginia's cry pierced the fog in Wolf's brain. He looked up. She was lying on the bed, curled up, her arms folded across her middle, tense. _Something's wrong,_ he thought. He half-stumbled to his feet, pulling himself up by the corner of his own cot and sat on it, panting, peering at Virginia. He hadn't been able to see her face from the floor. Now he could, and what he saw hurt him far more than his transformation pains: she was suffering badly - his immediate thought was that she was somehow also undergoing the metamorphosis - but he brushed that aside almost as soon as he thought of it. _The baby . . . our cub,_ he thought. _No._

His own cramps were not really that bad - much less painful than the previous month, and in fact much lighter than any he'd ever had. It was only the fighting against what they did to him that made them so agonizing. He'd managed to succeed so far in avoiding any of the change through constant attention, but all thoughts of himself were forgotten as he hobbled to the front of the cell, still slightly hunched over, his left arm folded across his stomach.

"Virginia . . ." he whimpered, fastening his free hand on the bars. A whine built up in him and he let it out as he sank to his knees, pressing his head against the cell door. He was crying and sobbing, nearly choking himself with a deep gasping breath as he exhaled in a mournful howl.

Virginia stirred, opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Wolf?" she whispered. Her voice was shaking.

"Oh, Virginia . . ." he cried miserably.

"I'm so sorry," she went on, her voice faint. Her eyes were swollen and red, and he could see that she was still crying. She bit her lip and scrabbled around with one hand in the bedclothes in front of her, finally finding what she sought. She threw it roughly at him. The object clanged off the lower bars of the door, coming to rest in the corridor, though still well within Wolf's reach. It was the key to his cell.

"Please come here," Virginia begged him.

Wolf stared at the key. It glinted enticingly at him in the lamplight. He ached for it. But should he, he wondered? He'd already let go too much; he could feel the change sliding in. He could hurt her. He'd be so very hungry with no food here, she couldn't order it for him now but he wasn't hungry yet, not now, but he would be very soon, he thought, ravenous, and then what would he do if he got free? Rafe was laughing at him, teasing him like he always had about his 'control' why do you care why can't you just accept it but he couldn't, he couldn't, not now, Virginia, he had to be with her the cub is dying but he might make it worse she wants him, needs him there. The key smelled like her, had her scent on it, he sniffed it and rubbed it on his face.

He was leaning over her, stroking her hair, before he realized what he had done. He gasped, but he was already out. Too late, no going back now. She looked up at him and he saw her eyes widen just a bit.

"Wolf?" she whispered. Her hand touched his face.

He took the hand and kissed it, his fangs just grazing her fingers.

"Shhh . . ." he said. She was in pain, afraid of the pain, but he was here now to protect her, his mate who carried his cub. He wouldn't leave, not ever. Not ever. She needed him. He would keep her safe. He lay down beside her, cradling her in his arms, and nuzzled her face. The scent of his mate fed him, filled him, but for her pain and fear. They were bad for her, bad for the cub. He wanted to lash out at them, but they weren't an enemy he could see. He whimpered and snuggled closer, stroking her face, her arms, the part of her where the cub lay, where the pain was.

_Cripes!_ What was he doing out of the cell, he wondered? How had he gotten here? _Think about it later! Right now . . . ?_

He felt the contraction beneath his hand and splayed his fingers out instinctively in a futile attempt to stop it. She panted as it slid slowly away, sobbing "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry" in a nearly inaudible voice.

He drew his eyebrows together. Something didn't make sense.

"How many is that?" he asked.

"Four." Her voice shook and she barely got the word out before dissolving into more sobs.

He propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her, licking his lips, concentrating.

"How much time in between them?" he asked.

"I don't know!" she wailed.

"Well, about?"

"Not much. More between the last two, maybe."

"Virginia, you shouldn't be having them," he said. "There's nothing wrong."

"Well that's too bad!" she cried hysterically. "I'm having them anyway!"

"No," he began, then tried to recall what she'd said in New York when she'd told him how the pregnancy 'test' worked. _Hurry up! You don't have much time!_ he thought to himself.

"There's no chemical change in your body," he told her. "None." Except her being afraid, he thought. But that would have happened afterwards.

"Then why is this happening?" she whimpered.

"I don't know," he said, "But there's nothing wrong with the baby." _For now,_ he thought.

"This can't be good for it," she said, echoing his thoughts.

"No," he agreed, distractedly. Did this remind him of something? _Had to do with Rafe? No. What?_

"You need to relax," he heard himself saying.

"Oh, right," she said sarcastically, "Relax or else. That's such a_relaxing_ thought!"

He remembered. Yes, that was how! _But how can I do that here? Something else, then? What? No time! _- he started to panic - _she'll have another contraction soon!_ He looked wildly around, his eyes fastening on her slippers, still on her feet. _Feet,_ he thought, and with the thought, pounced.

Virginia screamed.

"Stop it!!! Stop! Stop! Stop!" She gasped for air, writhing all over the bed, pounding on him to no avail, screaming wildly. He had to do it. It was the only way. When at last he saw that she couldn't catch her breath, he released her and helped her sit up.

She gasped. And gasped again. He could tell she wanted to speak, knew she would yell at him, but didn't care. What he did was necessary. But hearing her continue to gasp, he hoped he hadn't gone too far.

Finally, she caught her breath.

"What did y . . ?" she croaked.

"Shhh," he said, "Don't talk now. You can yell at me later. Can you breathe well enough now to lay back down? Just nod or shake your head."

She nodded, and lay down on her back.

"Turn over," he said.

She gave him a suspicious look and started to protest.

"I won't do it again," he said. "Wolf's honor."

She turned over. He pulled her robe off - it hadn't been fastened anyway - threw the quilt over her lower body, and climbed up to straddle her legs.

"What are you going to do?" she murmured.

"This."

He began kneading her lower back with his hands. She closed her eyes and exhaled in a little sigh of pleasure. He felt a bit of the tension flow out of her with the sigh and kept on, encouraged. All the muscles in her back were very tight, as he had expected. One by one, he worked them until Virginia seemed relaxed enough to be almost asleep, but he didn't stop. He wanted to be sure. What he had not expected to do was arouse himself.

_Cripes,_ he thought miserably, hating himself for the physical reaction. It was the moon again, he thought. Always the moon, making him behave now like an animal rutting, when he'd just almost lost his cub. And poor Virginia - sweet, creamy, delicious Virginia - how could he even think of that when her body hadn't even begun to recover from the near loss? Rationally, however, he knew that the moon was not pulling him at all at the moment. Earlier she had, yes, but not now, though he didn't know why. Did it have something to do with the emergency, he wondered? He didn't know. Nothing this alarming had happened to him since he was eleven years old _well, thank goodness!_ so he had nothing to compare it to. Probably it was nothing more than the problem he was having with his cycle, but if so, he was grateful for it at the moment. So he was aroused. It was nothing he couldn't handle; hadn't had to handle on almost a daily basis from the moment he'd met Virginia until that day in the woods - the day they'd conceived the baby. He simply felt guilty for responding that way now.

He sighed and plied his fingers to the sinews of her neck and shoulders, drawing out the last of her tension. She tilted her head away from his hands with a satisfied moan. It had been at least fifteen minutes, he thought, since that last contraction, and so far as he could tell she hadn't had another. He wasn't about to disturb her by asking, though.

An almost overwhelming ache to lay beside her gripped him. He wanted to feel her in his arms - not a sexual desire this time, but simply a need to hold her; hold them both. He eased off a bit on the massage, just enough so that he wouldn't stop too abruptly, and was just about to lie down when he heard a noise in the passage to his right.

Careful not to disturb Virginia, he climbed off the bed and crept carefully up the corridor. He knew it must be someone from the palace; the passage he'd taken led up to the main floor. But although it had been lit with hanging lanterns at widely spaced intervals, it was still relatively dark for someone without Wolf's nocturnal eyesight, and whoever was coming was not carrying a lamp. _Maybe they're just bringing that meat I asked for earlier,_ he thought. Only he knew they weren't. He couldn't smell it. He did smell something familiar, though. And he recognized who it was at nearly the same time as the king rounded a corner, approaching him warily, a long sword upraised before him in classic offensive posture. Wolf stopped.

"Why aren't you in the cell?" asked Wendell pointedly. His voice was not loud, but it echoed back off the stone walls nonetheless.

"Shh!" Wolf raised his finger to his lips for emphasis. He didn't want Virginia to be disturbed. And he certainly didn't want her getting out of bed, which he was afraid she might do if she got too curious about what was going on in here.

"The guards heard a scream," the king announced in what seemed to Wolf to be the exact same pitch as before.

Wolf nodded. _Yes, she did scream pretty badly when I was tickling her,_ he thought. He gestured for Wendell to come closer. The irony of the king's guards being so useless that Wendell had to protect them from him was not lost on him, though he didn't plan to say anything about it. Not now, anyway.

Wendell stood his ground. Wolf sighed.

"Virginia nearly had a miscarriage," he hissed as loudly as he dared. Apparently Wendell heard him because he lowered the sword ever so slightly. "She's resting now, so please be quiet!" he whispered.

"Let me see her," insisted Wendell, his voice still quite cold, though much quieter now. He flicked the point of the sword to indicate that Wolf should walk ahead of him.

Reluctantly, he led the king back to where she lay. He'd nearly reached it when he saw her raise her head.

"Wolf?" she called.

"I'm right here, my creamy dumpling," he answered, sitting down on the bed and brushing the hair away from her face with his hand. "How are you feeling?"

She'd put her head back down as soon as she'd seen him and now turned onto her side to face him.

"All right now, I think," she said. "Just tired." Suddenly she noticed Wendell and tilted her head back on the pillow to look at him, her brow furrowed.

"He heard you screaming," Wolf explained.

Virginia blushed.

"Wolf told me what happened," said the king gently as he slid the sword into its scabbard. "Would you like me to call the doctor?"

"No," she said. "Thank you, but I think it's stopped now. I just want to go to sleep. Really."

He nodded.

"Very well," he said. "If you decide you need him, though, just pull the cord, as you would for the food." He looked at Wolf. "By the way, do you need it yet?"

"No," Wolf replied. The question reminded him once again of how erratic his cycle had become. "No, I don't. I might not need it," he added, "But I can't be sure. Not now, though."

Wendell nodded once and turned to leave.

"Oh, Wendy," called Wolf after him, "Next time you go to fight a half-wolf single-handedly during full moon - take some light with you."

The king scowled. Wolf replied to the expression by allowing the feral wolf into his eyes for just a moment. Outwardly Wendell reacted very little, but the smell of shock and surprise which came from him gave Wolf more than a little satisfaction.

When he'd disappeared from sight, Wolf finally lay down beside his poor Virginia. She put one arm over him, pulling him closer to her, and sighed contentedly. He brushed her hair back from her face, then ran his hand down her arm and let it come to rest on the lower part of her stomach.

"Everything quiet in there now?" he whispered.

She put her own hand over his and murmured that it was. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself relax, releasing what tension he could from his own shoulders. The near-disaster had made him realize how foolish he had been to distance himself from his dear Virginia and their cub in his fit of self-pity. He'd come perilously close to missing the final four days of his child's existence, and why? Because he was afraid Virginia would no longer want it - or him - after she'd seen the truth about him - which was ridiculous. She'd seen what was probably the worst of the transformation in that play that told their story. So what if it was an actor and some special effects they used to do it? It got the point across very well. And had she reacted as he'd feared? No. She'd rushed to his side and stayed beside him - he realized now - constantly. It had been he who had kept himself apart.

He felt the thin cotton beneath his palm and the warmth of her stomach beneath that, sensing that he had only to press lightly - though he wouldn't dare do that now - to feel her womb. When he'd last touched her, that hadn't been possible. But the contraction he'd felt had been very close to the surface. His cub had grown, and he had missed it.

Frightening though it had been, the experience had showed him something else as well: his beloved Virginia loved and wanted the baby as much as he did. He'd been afraid, from her reaction to the news, both initially and later when she'd performed her own 'test,' that it was something he'd thrust upon her, unwanted; a burden rather than a blessing. Not that he had meant to - and he cursed his own inexperience in that matter. In the future he would be able to identify the scent of her fertility. By the time he had done so this time, however, it had been too late.

He sighed. Beside him Virginia stirred a bit.

"Wolf?" she asked.

He opened his eyes and looked straight into her wide blue ones. Unable to resist, he kissed her on the nose. She smiled.

"How did you know what to do?" she asked.

_Yes,_ he thought, _she's been asking about your family ever since we came back to the kingdoms and you've refused to tell her. I guess now is the time,_ he decided, even though he would've rather she went to sleep. But he wasn't going to put her off any more.

"I told you once before that my brother and I went to live with our aunt," he began.

Virginia nodded.

"My auntie was - is - a midwife," he told her. "And Rafe and I would help her when she went to see her patients."

"You're kidding!"

Looking at her astonished expression, he suddenly realized what she had concluded, and he laughed.

"No," he said, "Not that way. We didn't help with deliveries or anything. Just babysitting, mostly - watching the other cubs in the household and keeping them occupied while their mother was busy giving them a little brother or sister."

"Oh," she said, though she still looked slightly amazed to him. He didn't understand why.

"Anyway," he continued, "One time we went to this house and Auntie told us, after she'd been in to see her patient, that she wanted us to pretend we were fighting with each other and come in and wreck the inside of the house. She gave very specific instructions about it - thinking about it later I was surprised she asked us to do it at all, because Rafe and I fought constantly anyway, and we weren't pretending - but I know now how desperate she must have been. All she really insisted on was that we'd better not hurt any of the cubs there or she'd have our hides later. It was okay, though, she said, to pretend we might hurt them. And we weren't supposed to stop, even if she told us to, unless her patient actually got up and collared us. Well, of course we thought that was great and really tore the house to pieces. I remember I pulled over this huge cabinet full of dishes and almost hit this boy with it - scared him so much he carried on like he'd been hit anyway - but I didn't care, really, cause he was such a little monster. That got the mother up, though, and she made us stop. So we had to go outside then and wait for Auntie to get finished.

"Later, after we got home, I asked her why she let us do that and she said the woman was having something like moon cramps that were going to make the cub come too early if she couldn't get them stopped. And that she was too scared to move or do anything, so she wanted us to distract her with something that would make her forget completely about what was happening to her."

Virginia had listened to his story with an expression of absolute incredulity. When he finally finished, she thought a moment and then said, "So that's what you did? Distract me?"

Wolf touched the side of her face.

"There was no reason for you to be having contractions, Virginia," he said softly. "But you said yourself you couldn't relax because you couldn't stop thinking about what was happening."

"Oh," she breathed. He felt her snuggle closer to him and he gave her a little hug in response.

"Your auntie sounds a lot like you," she said.

The comment shocked him, especially coming from his mate. Had he reacted much worse than he'd feared about her finding out about him, he wondered? But then he realized Virginia knew nothing but this one little story.

"Not really," he said. "Although I know I've been too worried lately about the possibility of losing you, which I know now is ridiculous." He glanced at her as he spoke and was rewarded with the biggest, happiest smile he thought he'd ever seen on her face. The sight of it brought a lump to his throat. She raised herself up a bit to kiss him. He caught her and laid her back down.

"You probably should just lay down completely for awhile," he said. "Like all night."

He gave her the kiss, though. She studied him.

"Was your auntie a very sad person, then?" she asked.

A couple of weeks before my parents were killed, her mate - my uncle - and she were attacked by a couple of Red dragoons. He was killed in front of her. She was injured pretty badly but survived. When we first went to stay with her she was confined to bed - there were other people there too, then, that we didn't really know. I think probably they were some of her mate's relatives. And then after that we had to help her get around until she could do it on her own. Later, a lot of people who didn't know what had happened used to wonder why our sisters didn't go to live with her instead of us, since they thought girls would have been more appropriate helpers for a midwife, but they were a bit young at the time to help look after her in the beginning. She was always very sad and quiet. I used to want to make her laugh - and I did sometimes - but knowing what I know now I don't understand how she stood it. She did - she does - love children, though, so I guess having us there helped her in other ways too. They weren't together long enough to have any cubs of their own."

His voice had gone hoarse; he'd barely been able to finish. It hadn't been until he'd met Virginia that he completely understood what his poor Auntie had suffered. Now he felt his own mate put her hand on his heart and then pull him to her. He kissed her softly on the lips and buried his face in her hair.

* * *

Wendell leaned back in the chair behind his desk and tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. It hadn't been that long since he'd sent for the royal physician, but waiting at all agitated him. _Virginia'd nearly had a miscarriage!_ He knew she'd told him she didn't want a doctor now; that she'd gotten over it. But what if she hadn't? Wendell couldn't force his physician on her - and he wouldn't - but he certainly intended to make sure the man was informed of the situation and prepared for a possible emergency.

He got up and began distractedly to pace. _She'd been screaming._ He couldn't get that thought out of his mind. _The guards said they'd heard bloodcurdling screams._ He tried to tell himself that their imaginations had made it sound much worse than it actually was, but that didn't explain away the fact that they'd had to have heard something. He knew very little about childbirth - well, actually he knew next to nothing about it - but he seemed to recall hearing that it was quite painful, though he'd always thought that must have to do with the baby's size. But perhaps not - perhaps more pain was involved if the child came before its time?

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the floor, suddenly realizing he was not only chewing his nails but growling at them as well. Purposefully, he forced himself to walk back over and sit down at his desk, keeping his back rigidly at attention. He hated doing that - reverting to anything dog-like - and though it occurred less frequently now than it had in the beginning, it still did happen when he was under extreme pressure.

It wouldn't have been so bad - for him at least, he thought - if he didn't feel so blasted guilty about the way he'd reacted to the news of Virginia's pregnancy in the first place. He couldn't help feeling now as if he'd wished her baby dead. And though he knew rationally that he was much too ordinary a fellow to have the sort of psychic power necessary for that, and that what had happened to his step-sister would have happened no matter what he'd thought, he still felt somehow responsible.

He rubbed his face, feeling the invisible blonde stubble, and looked again at the clock._ Where is the man?_ he wondered again. As if in answer to his silent question, he suddenly heard footsteps outside in the corridor.

Dr. Mellifict appeared in the doorway, his medical bag in his hand. He nodded once in deference as he murmured the greeting, "Your majesty."

Wendell rose and walked over to him. Mellifict was tall, nearly as tall as Antony, and could look his king straight in the eye. His florid countenance and stout girth hinted at a man better given to telling people how to live healthy lives rather than showing them how to do it by example. But he had an ease of manner and a knowledge of his craft that made him popular.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked heartily, his sharp eyes taking in all of Wendell speculatively, although unobtrusively and without rudeness.

"Oh, it's nothing to do with me," the king assured him, indicating that he should sit down. When Mellifict had done so, Wendell related to him the entire episode. But it didn't take long for the king to notice that something was very wrong.

Though he said nothing, not wishing to interrupt his king, Mellifict's face had taken on a distinct look of disapproval which deepened as Wendell spoke. An uneasy chill made the hair on the king's neck stand up. He had not anticipated Mellifict's stance on the half-wolf question.

"I would certainly be willing to see the Lady Virginia," the doctor began smoothly, "However, I very much doubt whether anything can really be done to save the life of the . . . er . . . cub."

Wendell listened silently to him, a dread growing within him for his step-sister.

"You see," Mellifict went on, his voice taking on a slightly pedantic tone, "Interspecies couplings aren't natural; the offspring of such unions are - if you will forgive the term - monsters. They rarely survive birth, and even those that do are condemned to a short and unfortunate life. Believe me, if the Lady Virginia miscarries, it will be a blessing."

The king kept his face carefully impassive. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Mellifict sarcastically if he thought mules were 'monsters' of delicate health, but he forced himself to remain silent. The past month of seemingly futile arguments he'd had with what seemed like the entire human population of his kingdom over the nature of half-wolfs had at least taught him how little good a verbal riposte would do. In any case it wasn't the real issue, and he knew it.

"And I might make a recommendation," continued the doctor, "to preserve the health of your step-sister. While I understand that she would prefer not to see me, as you say, because of the necessity of admitting she has coupled with an animal, there is an herbal concoction which is easily brewed, and may be administered by anyone, that will bring about a spontaneous abortion. This seems harsh, I know, but it will be better for her health in the long run if the pregnancy is terminated as quickly as possible. A union such as she has entered into is extremely dangerous to the mother's life. Surely it has not escaped your notice that the event you related to me took place during the full moon? The older the cub becomes, the more violent will be the episodes. She can literally be torn apart from the inside out."

Wendell's face remained frozen, but his mind raced. _Could that be true?_ he wondered. _She had been screaming in agony . . ._ He didn't care for the way the doctor had twisted his own words and called Wolf an animal - that was nothing more than dogmatic adherence to the prejudiced beliefs the king had battled all month. But suppose he was right about the baby hurting her? It certainly seemed within the realm of possibility. And the man was a doctor, after all . . .

"If you could give me the name of the Lady Virginia's maid," Mellifict went on, "I will be happy to explain to her what needs to be done."

Wendell frowned.

"My step-sister doesn't have a ladies' maid in the usual sense," he replied. "There's only Emma, who takes them their meals and collects and folds the laundry, that sort of thing." He didn't bother to add that Emma had gotten the job because she was one of the few servants at the palace that wasn't intimidated by Wolf's nature.

"Well, then, Emma will have to do," said the doctor jovially, "Provided you think she can be discreet. But I suppose there's no question of that or she wouldn't have that position in the first place."

Wendell nodded, unsure if he was comfortable with the turn this was taking. He didn't care for Mellifict's attitude; the doctor seemed a bit too anxious to act, he thought. Before the king was willing to agree to such drastic measures he preferred to make absolutely certain they were necessary. _Even if he's right,_ he thought, _Virginia's not likely to suffer any more tomorrow than she has tonight. _The thought bothered him somewhat, because he disliked the idea of causing her any pain whatsoever - and he felt certain the doctor's argument against waiting would involve this sort of reasoning - but it had to be risked nonetheless.

"I'd prefer to wait until I've completely satisfied myself that terminating her pregnancy is the only solution" - he saw the doctor begin to protest and cut him off - "No, that's final," he said evenly. "But I assure you I'll come to a decision before the next full moon."

Mellifict glowered disapprovingly, but nodded. He collected his bag and took the king's leave.

Wendell sat down at the chair behind his desk and rested his head in his hands. He'd already resolved to spend the next night in the dungeon with them in order to see exactly what happened to Wolf. Tonight he'd been almost ready to conclude that there was no difference whatsoever in his behavior whether it was full moon or not, until the half-wolf had disturbingly altered the way his eyes appeared just before the king had left. _And if there were no difference, why would he have wanted to lock himself in a cell in the first place? _he thought. Wendell had too many questions about it, and now he'd been given one more. _Suppose Mellifict is right and Virginia has another near-miscarriage tomorrow? I've promised her a doctor, and now I can't call him; she'd never agree to the abortion, and I know he won't help try to save the child!_ It occurred to him that what Mellifict had said might be nothing more than superstition - his views on half-wolfs were so obviously dogmatic - but he also knew that it hadn't been that long ago that he himself had blindly believed Wolf's kind were nothing more than particularly nasty animals. He couldn't allow this one flaw to alter his own judgment of the doctor's medical ability, which was outstanding. No, he couldn't afford to believe that what Mellifict had said about the baby was simply another misconception; he'd have to find out for certain whether it was true, and soon. He'd have to ask a half-wolf. And the only one of those he knew was Wolf.

* * *

Mellifict closed the door to the king's study softly behind him. He sighed and his frown deepened. It was all very well to be the king and make decisions in your own good time, he thought, but there were some times when it was necessary to act quickly! He thought Wendell should have been able to see that, but the boy had changed since he'd had that spell put on him by his wicked step-mother.

The doctor shook his head and took himself out to the front of the king's living quarters, where the butler brought him his coat.

"Thank you," he said, "But not just yet. First I need to discuss something with Emma."

* * *

"Yes," said Virginia, "I think I finally am ready to marry you."

"Oh, Virginia!" cried Wolf happily. Carefully he placed his corded, liver-spotted hands on the arm of her chair, trying to pull himself up off the floor where he'd been kneeling, but he succeeded only in toppling into her lap. He came to rest with his weathered face pressed against her left breast.

"Luscious as ever," he murmured.

She looked down onto the perfect head of snow white hair and pushed him away.

"Now, now," she told him, "I think you can wait until after the wedding for that."

He whined.

The dress she'd worn to the awards ceremony all those years before still fit, though it had to be taken in a bit. She tottered into the foyer of Westminster Abbey. Her father was waiting for her on his motorized go-cart. He patted her hand. He had grown quite stoop-shouldered over the years, his face a solid mass of wrinkles like an old prune, the only hair remaining on his head a few wispy white strands which he grew long and combed into a concentric circle over his crown.

"Like a ride?" he wheezed.

She sat down beside him, trying with some success not to throw her hip out of joint, and looked through the door at the huge crowd already jammed into the church.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "I told Wendell I only wanted our families and a few friends! Who are all those people?"

Her dad shook his finger at her, or tried to._ He really should just go with the timing of the palsy instead of trying to fight against it,_ she thought.

"Don't you remember them, honey?" he asked querulously. "They _are_ our family. Your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You and Wolf have five children, you know, three girls and two boys. That makes for a lot of descendants."

Wolf was waiting for her at the end of the aisle wearing the black silk evening suit he'd first worn the same night she'd worn her dress. Stiffly, he managed to negotiate the steps, his balance aided by leaving his tail unconfined - it had been a long while since he'd been able to leave it concealed - and helped her up out of the go-cart.

"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

Wolf looked at her. His face was still quite handsome, she thought, despite the age. His skin was both tanned and translucent, and his hair, including his always-present whiskers and improbably long eyelashes, had entirely gone to white. But the tropical sea color of his eyes seemed to show up all the more by the contrast.

"I . . ." he began to reply. Then he vanished.

"Wolf?" she asked. She turned around to look at her father.

"What'd he say?" Tony demanded, an enormous golden ear trumpet jammed into his right ear. On it were painted peacocks intertwined with white lilies. "Heh? What'd he say?"

"DADDY!" she shouted. "DID YOU TAKE YOUR PILLS? HAVE YOU EATEN?"

She ran back down the three steps towards him, but her hip gave out halfway down and she tumbled onto Wolf, who had been rolling from side to side in an effort to sit up.

"Where did you go?" she demanded.

"I fell off the platform," he explained, grabbing ahold of her.

After a brief struggle, they managed to attain a sitting position by holding onto each other for support. As they turned over onto their hands and knees to begin the long process of standing up, they noticed a length of white fur lying on the floor. In a panic, Wolf's hand shot to his behind.

"Oh, NO!" he exclaimed dismally. "It's my TAIL! QUICK! Get a band-aid!"

* * *

Virginia sat abruptly up in bed, gasping. She had barely enough time to recover from her momentary disorientation and realize she was still in the dungeon cell before she felt Wolf's arms around her. She hugged him violently back, pressing her face to his chest as she tried to catch her breath. He held her tightly for a few moments, then pulled back to look at her.

"Virginia, are you all right?" he asked.

She was almost afraid to look up at him, and her relief at finding the Wolf she remembered, virtually the same age as when she'd met him, brought tears to her eyes and she hugged him close again.

"Virginia?"

She felt his hand touch her lightly on the stomach and heard the worry in his voice.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, "I just had a bad dream, that's all. I'm fine." She put her hand over his. "The baby is fine, too."

"What happened in the dream?" he asked. But though he no longer sounded so worried, there was still a lot of concern in his voice, she thought. More than would be accounted for by just curiosity or politeness.

"It was stupid," she said. "I can't explain it, it would just sound silly. It's just that there was something about it that really frightened me. I know it was just a dream, though. I'm sorry I'm acting this way."

He tilted her chin up so she looked at his face. She didn't know why, but the idea still frightened her; as if she were half afraid he would have aged sixty years in the last few moments.

"Virginia, if it's still affecting you now, it must be very important," he said. "You can't ignore it, and it wouldn't be wise to try."

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling in an overly dramatic gesture, trying to feign a casualness she didn't really feel.

"Oh, yeah, right," she said. "Thank you Dr. Freud. Can't a cigar just be a cigar?" The sarcasm bounced right off of him; he softly pushed the hair away from the right side of her face and continued to regard her with gentle concern. She swallowed. The words '_Think about where you are_' sprang to the front of her mind and echoed there repeatedly.

"Wolf, can I see your tail?" she asked.

He reached under the blanket and drew it out. Though he still wore his trousers - he'd said he might need to get up suddenly because of his cycle, though she thought it might also be because Wendell was sleeping in the corridor just outside the cell in the bed she'd occupied on the previous evening - his tail had not been tucked away as it usually was. Everyone in the palace knew he was a wolf anyway, especially since he was confined to the dungeon for the full moon (albeit a self-imposed confinement), so he'd seen no reason to add to any of the physical discomfort he usually expected to suffer.

"It's not as long as it usually is this time of the month," he commented, sounding vaguely apologetic.

She stroked the black-tipped silvery fur and he twitched it a bit. His tail felt soft and warm to her; alive. Nevertheless, she ran her hand back around behind him to feel where it joined his body. He jumped and let out a slight gasp.

"Virginia!" he hissed, taking her hand away, though he didn't let it go. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he said, "I think we should wait a little while for that, after what happened last night, don't you?"

She realized then what she was doing to him, and laughed nervously.

"I'm sorry," she said. Nothing she had done so far had really helped, but that hardly surprised her. The dream was too silly. Of course none of it had happened.

"What did happen in that dream?" he asked curiously.

"Nothing," she mumbled. Was that the problem? _Nothing_ had happened? She knew what the dream meant, really. The answer was right there in the corner of her mind. She didn't want to look at it, not at all, but it kept jumping in front of her trying to make her see it.

"Wolf . . ." she began. The rest of the words stuck in her throat. It was more difficult than when she'd told him she loved him - even though then a part of her had still feared rejection, at least she'd always believed that love was possible. But what she was about to say now went against her entire philosophy of life, at least up to this point. Even the baby had been easier to accept, although she acknowledged now that it hadn't been very real to her up until yesterday - until it was nearly taken away. She knew now she couldn't make herself change her mind about the baby. Not that she'd wanted to, except she'd always told herself before that it was only because she couldn't stand to disappoint Wolf. Now she knew differently. But the baby's conception hadn't required conscious thought. If it had, she knew she'd probably never have agreed to it - at least not until it was too late. _Too late . . ._

Part of her tried to push the fear back down, labeling it maudlin sentimentality. _It's just a piece of paper; it's meaningless!_ she insisted to herself. But then came the internal reply: _If it's so meaningless, why do you object so much?_

Wolf was waiting quietly for her to continue. She looked up into his eyes, then away, though she had no idea why looking at him made it harder for her to say what she needed to say; he so obviously loved her. Maybe because he seemed to look right down into her so she couldn't hide for that last little bit of hesitation; those last few moments before she said . . .

"I want to marry you," The words tumbled out in a rush. It was a relief to finally say them; a huge weight lifted from her. She looked back up at him. He was regarding her with an expression of amazed wonder. She smiled hesitantly as he touched her face, lightly brushing her hair behind her ear.

"Splendid!" exclaimed another voice behind her. Wendell had sat up on the cot out in the corridor, and was beaming happily at them.

* * *

He knew he was intruding. But he'd been awakened by Virginia's cry at the same time as Wolf, and try as he might, he simply couldn't ignore what they were saying and go back to sleep. He felt somewhat guilty for not letting them know he was awake before now, though upon reflection he decided it might have been for the best. Virginia might not have gone on to say what she did, and if what she'd said had been left for another time, she might well never have spoken at all, he thought. And though he felt that what he'd said was awkward, he also felt it wasn't likely to get any easier from there on. Certainly he didn't want to be an unwitting witness to their lovemaking.

They were still staring at him, however.

"Sorry," he said apologetically, "But I was awake, and . . ." his voice trailed off into silence: no '_that's perfectly understandable, Wendell'_s' rushing in to fill the void. He coughed nervously.

"So do you have any idea when you'd like the wedding to take place, Virginia?" he asked. _Might as well be a cad to the bitter end,_ he thought.

Virginia shook her head slightly - Wendell hadn't realized how much he'd shocked her until then - glanced at Wolf, then back to him.

"As soon as possible," she replied.

He did a bit of mental arithmetic. It would have to be quick, he agreed with her on that, though probably not for the same reason. Her haste would be the result of whatever message the dream had sent her; he very much doubted she cared _how_ gravid she appeared. The question was, how much time could he get away with for the preparation? Not to mention trying to figure out some way to keep Wolf's family from being recognized? Fortunately it wasn't the time of year for society functions of any consequence. A short notice on a wedding invitation should be no hardship; not in the kingdoms, anyway. He had no idea what the wedding customs might be in Virginia's world. _If they have any_, he thought sardonically.

"A month from now, then?" he suggested.

He thought he saw her blink.

"That long?" she asked.

Wolf smiled.

"There has to be time enough for the guests to receive the invitations," Wendell explained, "And reply to them, as well as time to travel."

"Oh," she said, sounding quite disappointed.

"I suggest we all get some sleep, then," he said brightly. Too brightly, he knew, but he couldn't seem to help it. "And we can discuss it at length in the morning."

"Well . . ."

"If you want to, that is," he added, hoping he hadn't put her off. That was the last thing he wanted to do at this stage.

"Let's go to sleep," he heard Wolf say.

The two of them lay down. Wendell did the same, turning on his side, his back to them, and tried to get comfortable under the quilts. He found himself staring at the stair-stepped crack in the wall, where the foundation had settled and the mortar between the stones had failed, as he had earlier that evening. He closed his eyes.

He'd felt awkward from the beginning, telling them he intended to spend the night with them in the dungeon. They'd already spent the day together, playing Old Maid, Go Fish, and Crazy Eights to ease their boredom until he thought they'd probably never want to see another pack of cards again in their lives. Wolf had been no different than he'd ever been, so far as Wendell could see. Virginia, too, seemed quite recovered from her ordeal the night before except that she'd grown fatigued early in the afternoon and had lay down to take a nap. Wendell had taken that opportunity to ask Wolf what he hoped would not be too sensitive a question.

"Is it possible that what happened to Virginia last night could be somehow related to the full moon? What I mean is, might the baby be affected by it?"

He'd expected Wolf to reply with either a confirmation of his worst fears or an outraged denial, so he was surprised when the half-wolf accepted the question as if it were a perfectly natural one.

"No," he'd said. "We don't have a physical reaction to the moon until we're around twelve or thirteen years old. It's a fascination in cubhood, but nothing more."

Wendell might have asked more, especially about the nature of the physical reaction, but he was interrupted by Virginia, who had not been asleep as he'd assumed.

"Really?" she'd asked in a relieved voice. "Oh, I'm so glad."

Wolf's head had snapped up to look at her.

"Were you worried about that, Virginia?" he asked, sounding quite worried himself. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"No, not that," she replied. "It never even occurred to me. I was just worried about the baby having to go through that after it was born."

Wolf had gone to sit with her then, and they talked for quite a long time, murmuring words Wendell couldn't quite catch - not that he'd tried. He knew they'd wanted him to leave, but he'd stubbornly remained where he was, trying to absorb what he'd so far learned.

_So it's an element of sexual maturity,_ he thought. _How very interesting._

But the information brought him back to Mellifict. Wendell had to wonder now if the good doctor was among those who advocated genocide. The king knew such a movement existed, although he himself had never approved of it, even before he'd discovered that so much of what was considered 'common knowledge' about the nature of wolfs was simply untrue. But the doctor had tried his best to convince the king that the baby had to be aborted. Had the man really believed what he'd said about it killing Virginia, or had he known better, wondered Wendell? Mellifict was a doctor, after all . . .

Wendell sighed and fished under his pillow for his watch. He flipped it open and squinted at the face. It was no use. The light was far too dim for him to see the hands. Wearily he closed it and put it away, recalling uneasily the warning Wolf had issued to him the night before about taking a light with him to fight a half-wolf during full moon. The way his eyes had changed had been quite bestial in nature. And that was what wolfs were reputed to do during the full moon: transform into beasts; beasts so vile and vicious they killed every living thing in their paths. Wolf's own expectations had seemed to support this: he'd been beside himself when Virginia had insisted on sleeping inside the cell with him (not to mention feeling the cell was somehow necessary in the first place). But it was from Virginia that Wendell got his only scrap of what the 'physical reaction' was actually like. She'd informed Wolf quite casually that he'd undergone the 'change,' as she put it, the night before, when he'd let himself out of the cell to come to her side. And all he'd done, she'd said, was kiss her hand and hold her. _Not exactly vile and vicious behavior,_ thought Wendell, however what had been even more interesting to him was the fact that Wolf obviously had no memory of his actions at that time whatsoever, _and,_ that when questioned, Wolf admitted to_ never_ remembering most of his actions during the full moon.

"No wolf does," he'd said.

It seemed to Wendell that that fact had a lot of implications attached to it, but he was far too tired by now to sort them out. _Surely they'll wait until the morning,_ he thought.

He fell asleep staring at the crooked crack in the wall.

* * *

Tony stuffed a pillow under him in an attempt to cushion the ride, then remembered why he hadn't done it before: It made him sit up so high he had to bend his neck sideways to clear the ceiling. Heaving a disgusted sigh, he yanked it from beneath him, coming down hard on the springs of the seat with his already sore posterior. He winced. _How much farther is it?_ he wondered. He wished there was some convenient way he could ask instead of having to stick his head out the tiny side window, twist his neck in an unnatural direction, and shout at the coachman hoping to be heard. He decided, though, that it was probably just as well. Otherwise he'd probably ask every five minutes like a little kid on a long ride in the car. He just wished his butt didn't hurt so much. In his mind's eye, an image of Murray or one of his multitude of relatives trying to kiss it to make it better suddenly formed. He blanched. _Now there's a mental image I don't need,_ he thought.

The memory served to remind him, however, that present sore ass or not, he was a whole lot better off in the kingdoms than he had been in New York. And though he'd been violently cursing the seats in the carriage, he knew it really wasn't their fault. The coach was brand new and quite plush, with an excellent set of leaf springs; a gift from the king along with the promised titles and land (which he had yet to inspect). Though slightly smaller than the royal coach (which was only to be expected) it was a beautiful glossy black with a team of four horses to match. The interior was done entirely in a pale aquamarine, the doors and headliner in a small monochromatic sateen print and the seat cushions in a solid velour, well-stuffed, with many tufts and buttons. To Tony's amusement, the hardware for the door - the latch and window handle - was identical to that in an automobile. But there was no carpet; the road conditions made having that impractical. And it was the damned road conditions that were giving him an aching butt.

He leaned over to one side, trying to give his tailbone a rest at the same time he stared out the window at the rutted dirt road below. _Why can't they pave them?_ he wondered. _Maybe I should work on that next. Wendell wanted a damned industrial revolution anyway._ Except he knew that was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. The entire trip to Kissingtown had been made with that in mind - avoiding the introduction of plastic into the kingdoms with all its attendant pollution problems. As it turned out, the balloons he'd seen there were made of latex, which he wasn't absolutely sure he could use. It would be costly, he knew that, to import the stuff from whatever tropic locale it came from, but not as expensive as mounting an entire industrial revolution from scratch, he surmised. He did think he'd be able to at least get away with experimenting with it for awhile - he just hoped his experiments wouldn't be in vain. It was all very well to make your living in plastics in a world where they'd exist no matter what some peon like him did anyway. It was another to single-handedly ruin a beautiful unspoiled world through sheer greed. _Maybe that's what he's counting on,_ he thought. _My greed._ He remembered the introduction Wendell had given him at the award ceremony and just hoped that if it ever came to it he'd have the strength to resist that kind of temptation.

He sighed heavily and gazed absently out across what, until recently, had been a cornfield. In the distance, the road bent around it, apparently following someone's property line. Just at the bend walked a figure with an odd gait, going the same direction as Tony. As he drew closer, he saw it was an old woman limping.

He pulled the cord to signal the coach to stop. It came to a halt only a few feet ahead of the woman, who stopped at the same time. He took her in: thin and gaunt, her thick white hair confined in a bun at the nape of her neck, skin tanned from the outdoors. On her feet were sensible black shoes like Tony's grandmother used to wear, covered now with the dust of the road, and which somehow belonged with the brown calico dress and white crocheted shawl that she hugged to her shoulders. He opened the door and stepped out.

"Hello," he began cheerfully. He really was cheerful at that moment, it felt so wonderful just to stand up, though he hoped the stiffness he felt as he unbent himself didn't show. "Would you like a ride?"

She regarded him warily and didn't reply. It was only then that it occurred to him that his offer might be perceived as threatening.

"I really mean it," he tried to assure her. "I'm on my way to the royal palace, so I can drop you off anywhere along the way."

She did an odd thing then: she cocked her head and lifted her chin. Tony felt he should recognize the gesture, but his mind stubbornly refused to identify it. Her eyes narrowed as she continued to stare at him silently. After a moment, she walked up to him. At close range he could see that she was quite a bit younger than he'd at first thought; possibly no older than he was himself. Her skin, though tan, was not leathery, but smooth and nearly unlined, with a few freckles scattered across the fragile bridge of her nose. Her eyes, however, a clear light gray, were ancient. She studied him for a moment, trying to decide, he supposed, if he could be trusted.

"Thank you," she said, apparently deciding that he could.

He held his arm out gallantly for her to take to help herself up into the coach, but she ignored it and began climbing in by herself. Whatever it was that caused her to limp when she walked made the climbing a slow, awkward process. Tony reached over to support her by the elbow and waist so he could lift her in. Her reaction startled him: She recoiled so violently from his touch that she struck her head and shoulders on the side of the carriage and nearly fell sideways down onto the rutted road. He jerked his hands away, feeling embarrassed and guilty for no good reason. Christine at her strangest had never reacted to him like this.

Slowly, the white-haired woman caught her breath, her arms folded tensely in front of her, her eyes fastened on his shoes.

"I was only going to help you into the coach," he explained.

She nodded and licked her lips.

"I . . . I need to climb in by myself," she stuttered.

He let her.

She took a little while arranging her skirts just so behind her, then sat primly, her knees together, hands folded in her lap, staring out the window.

"I'm Tony Lewis . . ." he introduced himself.

She glanced once at him, nodded politely in acknowledgment, and returned her attention to the countryside.

"How far are you going?" he asked.

She looked back at him. He could almost see her deciding that yes, that was something he would need to know.

"To the palace," she said. Her thumbs began agitatedly describing circles into her palms. She looked away, then back.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "It's not the custom of my . . . my people to give out our names."

"Oh," he replied, vaguely recalling to mind some lore about true names and using them to gain power over a person.

She took a deep breath.

"Millie," she said. "I'm Millie."

"You didn't have to tell me."

"No, it's all right."

She returned her attention to the window.

"It may be none of my business," he began, thinking even as he spoke the words that it was certain to be the case, "but what are you planning to do at the palace?" He had some idea that she might be a new servant to replace one of the several the queen - Christine - had killed. The thought gave him a cold chill; suddenly he wished he hadn't brought it up.

Instead of telling him to shut up or ignoring him completely, however, she did that little head-cocking thing again. At close range he could see her chest rise as she inhaled deeply._ Where have I seen that before?_ he wondered. But her eyes didn't squint at him this time. Their expression was almost one of complete understanding, as if she was somehow able to read his mind. He swallowed uneasily. _No, that can't be true,_ he decided. _If she could do that, she'd never have jerked away from me when I was helping her into the coach._

"You may wish to put me out if I tell you," she ventured.

"Oh, no," he assured her. "I won't do that. No matter what it is." He thought a moment, then grinned. "Unless you're planning to kill someone."

She smiled briefly, though it didn't reach her eyes.

"No, not that," she replied as if his little joke had been completely serious. "I'm going to beg a . . . a pardon for my son. He's in prison."

Tony raised his eyebrows.

"The Snow White Memorial Prison?" he asked.

She nodded. He considered telling her that he'd been there himself, but thought better of it. He hadn't really gotten to know anyone and so was unlikely to recall who her son was, if he'd ever even met him. And he realized uncomfortably that if he pressed a friendship with her, he might end up in the unenviable position of feeling obligated to argue in her son's favor before Wendell - and who knew what the kid had done? She seemed quite content to stare out the window. He should let her.

He leaned back in the seat and thought about his own child. Virginia was why he really wanted to hurry and get back - why he'd pressed the coachman on despite the man's irrational fear of traveling when the moon was full. He hadn't been away from her for this long since the day she was born, even in the early days when he still traveled a bit on business. She was a grown woman now, though, he realized, and entitled to her own life, but it was still difficult getting used to being without her company. She'd been all he'd had for so long. But at least he had something useful to do with his life here to keep himself occupied instead of being stuck in a job of pure survival now that she'd finally found someone to make her happy.

That thought brought Wolf instantly to mind, and he found himself dwelling on the half-wolf's parting words to him: _See you soon . . . Grandpa!_ He hadn't been able to think of very much else whenever he thought of them in the whole time they'd been gone, and he had absolutely no idea what to make of the comment. _The literal truth?_ he wondered. _That's not possible - well, yes, of course it's __**possible**__, but how would they know?_ The abnormally long time they'd spent looking for wood that day - and come back without any! - hadn't been lost on him; he remembered a similar situation with Christine, just before they'd gotten married. And he knew they'd unofficially shared the same room at the palace. Only there hadn't been enough time gone by - at least at the time they'd returned to New York - to find out she was . . . pregnant. _It had to be wishful thinking on Wolf's part,_ he thought. No, he decided, he wasn't really worried at all that she was actually pregnant. What worried him was that he knew she didn't want children - and he didn't want Wolf forcing one on her as he'd done with Christine. But he wasn't really sure what he could do to stop it, aside from sounding like a meddling in-law. Besides, he knew deep down that he really ought to let Virginia handle her own problems. He just hated to see her get hurt.

* * *

Wendell greeted him at the postern that gave onto the carriage-yard. Millie had remained silent for the remainder of the journey, until she'd stiffly thanked him for the ride when he dropped her off at the front drawbridge, near the petitioners' entrance. Tony had waved goodbye and promptly forgotten about her. Now, he smiled distractedly at Wendell's reception, looking around and beyond the king for his daughter. She was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, yeah, mmm," Tony replied to whatever it was Wendell had just said. "Look, I know this is probably going to sound rude, and I don't want to seem ungrateful for your hospitality, but where is Virginia?"

"Oh," Wendell answered, sounding as if he understood perfectly, "She and Wolf are still in the dungeon, I believe."

Tony stared. He wasn't sure he'd heard that last part right.

"The dungeon?"

Wendell smiled, apparently just realizing how what he'd said might sound.

"Oh, they're not prisoners," he clarified. "Wolf just wanted to stay there during the full moon."

Now Tony was even more mystified.

"What is it with this full moon crap?" he asked. "Why is everyone suddenly so terrified of it? I feel like I'm in the middle of a haunted forest in Transylvania on my way to Dracula's castle at midnight!"

Wendell, though looking a bit confused himself at Tony's comment, started to answer. But before he could utter a single word, a piercing scream ripped through the air. Their heads snapped towards the sound in unison. More, though slightly lesser, screams followed. Wendell was the first to start running towards them. Tony caught up to him at a massive door set in a high stone wall.

"I think it came from the kitchen garden," offered the king as he waited impatiently for a lackey to unlock the door-gate.

Inside the garden, several female members of the kitchen staff huddled together near the scullery door, glancing furtively now and then towards the rear of the walled enclosure.

"What's happened?" Wendell demanded.

His question seemed to cue the red-faced, sobbing woman in the midst of the gathering, a rather heavy-set matron wearing a soil-smudged white apron, to a renewed outburst of hysterics.

"A wolf!" she cried, "It was a wolf! A wolf! A wolf! That's what it was!" She broke down into a frenzied series of gasps, but after a moment, managed to continue, moaning, "Oh, I knew it! I knew it! I knew it would happen! Ohhhhhhh!" before collapsing at last into the arms of her co-workers.

"WHERE?" demanded the king, obviously irritated.

The youngest, a thin girl who might have been no more that twelve, answered him.

"Back there, your grace," she said, pointing to the rear of the garden while trying awkwardly to curtsy, "I reckon he must have got her last night."

Wendell stormed back to where she had pointed. Tony followed him. In what looked to the New Yorker like a patch of weeds but must not have been since they had so obviously been cultivated, face up, eyes wide and staring, her throat torn savagely out, lay his daughter's maid, Emma.


	5. IV Family Ties

IV - Family Ties

"Wolf, you don't have to carry me," insisted Virginia. "I'm fine now. Really."

They were headed back upstairs from the dungeon, Wolf having decided that if he still felt no effects from the moon by noon on the third day that he was safely past his time of the month. But he'd scooped her up from the bed where she'd been sitting, not even allowing her feet to touch the floor for their walk back up to the main floor. Thinking back on it, she was amazed he'd even let her go to the bathroom unaided, but she remembered then she'd had to fight to do that alone as well.

"I just don't want you walking up all those stairs," he said.

"Wolf, I can't go the next eight months being carried up and down stairs every time I want to go somewhere."

"I can carry you, Virginia," he assured her. "I don't mind."

She'd been half joking herself, but his comment sounded deadly serious. _Oh, no,_ she thought. _How am I going to talk him out of this?_

Almost as if in answer, she felt a tug at her left hand. It was her free hand, not the one around Wolf's neck. She brought it up where they could both see what it had to say.

"_Don't you worry; don't you cry,_  
_The child inside will not die."_

"Oh, thanks," she said dryly. "Where were you before when we were scared half to death?"

As soon as the words had left her mouth, however, she began to wonder if the ring might not have spoken before because there had been no assurance of the baby's safety for it to give them until now.

"Never mind, don't answer that," she told it quickly, then looked at Wolf and said, "See, I'm fine, just like I told you. So will you put me down now?"

His eyes met hers and she could see him relenting.

"As soon as we get to the top of the stairs, okay?" he said.

"_These_ stairs," she clarified.

The corners of his mouth quirked. She started to giggle; their heads drew closer. But just before they touched, Wolf's attention jerked away, focused suddenly on something up the stairs, above them.

"What?" she asked.

"I heard a scream," he said, still distracted, then amended, "She's still screaming."

Virginia looked up the stairs as well.

"Who?" she said. She hadn't heard anything, but she knew Wolf's hearing was far more sensitive than her own.

"I don't know," he said, increasing his pace.

"We'd go faster if you'd put me down," she pointed out, though she knew he could have run full speed holding her if he'd wanted to.

He was too distracted to comment.

When they reached the massive oaken door which separated the dungeons from the rest of the castle, he kept his word and set her down. Virginia watched as the single panel of four feet wide, five inch thick wood swung silently outward on three immense iron hinges, thinking, as she did every time she saw it, that she was glad the escape route she and her dad had taken led out through the armory instead of to this door. She'd never have been able to chop through it with an axe as she had the panel door to the guardroom. Of course, she wouldn't have had an axe then, either, she thought.

Whoever it was that had been screaming had apparently stopped. The palace was quiet.

"It was coming from the direction of the kitchen," Wolf told her.

She smiled.

"Of course it was," she teased. But when the door had been opened, she'd smelled quite a few delicious food smells herself, so she really couldn't blame him. It was past lunch time, after all, and neither of them had eaten yet. Plus, she thought, someone there might know something about the screaming.

It turned out he was right, though. Only two people were left in the kitchen to tend to the cooking fires. Virginia saw the rest of them huddled just outside the large multi-paned window that faced onto the vegetable and herb garden. Further observations were cut short, however, when she saw her dad standing just beyond the door. Eagerly, she ran outside to meet him, leaving Wolf behind.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

"Sweetheart!" he cried as he hugged her tightly, then stepped back his hands still on her waist. "I've missed you."

"I missed you too," she said.

Wolf walked up beside her, holding what looked like half of a cooked chicken. Her dad smiled at him.

"Oh!" said Virginia, "Wolf said he heard someone screaming. What was that all about? Do you know?"

She realized after she'd spoken that her dad had been about to say something to Wolf, but he turned to her instead and said, "One of the servants was killed, apparently last night. The woman who found the body screamed."

Wolf shoved a chicken leg in her face. She shot him a distracted look, her brow furrowed.

"Oh my God," she murmured, continuing the conversation with her father. "Who was it? Not anyone we know?"

"You need to eat, Virginia," she heard Wolf say. Her father looked clearly uncomfortable. She began to have a bad feeling about the victim's identity, and tried to wave Wolf and his food away.

"Not now, Wolf."

"Virginia, you can't skip meals while you're pregnant, remember?"

_Oh, shit._

Her father's eyes widened.

"_What?!_" he demanded. He glanced over at Wolf. "You were serious, then, calling me Grandpa?"

"Well, of course, Tone," came the answer, uttered as if her dad were a bit dim.

Virginia finally took the proffered chicken leg, thigh and drumstick still joined. Wolf licked his fingers and leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'll go see what happened," he said, and set off gnawing on his quarter of the chicken.

_Great,_ she thought sarcastically. _Just announce to my father that I'm pregnant and then leave me here by myself to explain!_

Her dad studied her for a moment. Then he touched her elbow.

"Let's go over here and sit down," he said, gesturing to a wooden bench nearby.

Virginia took a bite of the chicken. If she was chewing, she decided, she'd have a little bit longer to think about what she was going to say. But as usual, the first bite of food she took made her realize how hungry she really was. She swallowed it and quickly bit off another piece as she sat down stiffly on the bench.

Tony looked down at the gravel path as if he weren't quite sure how to begin, either. Then he looked up at her out of the corner of his eye. To her surprise there was nothing of the incensed parent about him; he simply looked sad.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Now her mouth was full when she wanted to answer immediately. She nodded, chewed, and swallowed.

"Yes," she said. "I'm fine." There was no need to tell him about what had nearly happened in the dungeon, she thought. It was already in the past. The ring had said so.

"Virginia . . ." he seemed at a loss for words. She didn't know what to say, either, so she took another bite, waiting for him to continue.

"Wow, you're really going after that chicken," he commented.

She rolled her eyes self-consciously and looked away.

"It's kind of a side effect," she tried to explain.

"You're not going to get like . . ." he nodded in Wolf's direction, smiling.

_Am I?_ she suddenly wondered. _No, I haven't really noticed it getting worse. At least not yet._

"I think this is probably as bad as I'll get," she said, and explained what had happened to her when she'd skipped a meal.

He smiled, then bit his lip.

"Honey," he said, "Are you sure this is what you really want?"

Her mouth was full again and she couldn't answer him in words. So she nodded.

"Because I know you've always said you never wanted to have children," he continued before she could swallow. He scratched the back of his head. Clearly uncomfortable, he plunged on, "Virginia, you know I love you and I wouldn't trade you for anything in the world, but I don't want to see you go through what your mother did when I talked her into having you. Are you sure you're not just going through with this because it's what Wolf wants?"

She swallowed the last bite of meat.

"No, Daddy," she said. "At first I did think that, but I know now it's what I want too."

He gave her a puzzled look and she finally told him what had nearly happened to her.

"Are you all right now?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

In the rear of the garden she saw Wolf engaged in a heated discussion with a man she didn't recognize. Tony glanced over his shoulder to see what had distracted her, shrugged, and turned back to her.

"Have you seen a doctor?" he asked. "And I don't mean a medieval quack. I mean in New York."

"No, I don't have any insurance."

He looked genuinely chagrined, as if he'd completely forgotten all about mundane things like that.

"Where did you stay?" he asked. "Were you able to get back into the apartment?"

She smiled, at last finding an opening to talk about something she thought he would like, and launched into a description of his new penthouse. But she hadn't gotten very far when the argument Wolf was having grew loud enough to hear.

"_NO WOLF DID THIS!"_ he roared, his words clear even at this distance. From the look on his face, she could tell he probably wanted to bite the man he was shouting at, but Wendell seemed to be holding them apart. The other man, whose face was turned away from her, said something about "conclusive evidence," but she wasn't able to make out any more. Distractedly, she got up and started over to them, dropping only a hasty "excuse me" to her father.

He caught up with her, planting himself firmly in her path.

"Just stay away from there," he said. "You don't want to see it."

Virginia had already had enough of Wolf's over-solicitousness. She didn't want more of it from her father. Glaring daggers at him, she pushed past and nearly ran the rest of the way over to where the three men were standing.

She'd been interested in the argument, but her eyes were inexorably drawn to the pale blotch of whiteness lying amidst the green of the surrounding herbs. _Emma!_ Eyes bulging, her neck a mass of bloody red meat, covered with flies . . .

Virginia's stomach lurched. She ran blindly away, out farther into the garden, almost reaching the stone fence before she lost everything she'd just eaten. Shaking uncontrollably, unable to move, she just stood there until she felt Wolf's arms go around her. Then she turned and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.

* * *

Wolf held her tightly and stroked her hair, mentally cursing himself for not realizing that his outrage would attract her attention. He'd just become so incensed at the implications behind the doctor's conclusions that he hadn't been thinking clearly. It hadn't helped that the doctor had begun by accusing Wolf outright of killing poor Emma. Wendell, of course, had known he was innocent and quickly said so, much to the doctor's ire, Wolf had noted. Yet Mellifict had stubbornly insisted that a wolf had to be responsible, if not Wolf, then some other, since the fur he'd removed from her hands was obviously wolf fur. But Wolf could tell the fur was old, long dead, as its owner undoubtedly was. He knew the killing was only meant to mimic what a wolf would do, except he couldn't prove it, not to someone without a wolf's senses. And Wendell was clearly swayed by the doctor's assessment. 

The probable reason for the king's wanting to spend the previous night in the dungeon with him hadn't been lost on Wolf either, even at the time. He didn't think it would take a genius to figure out that Wendell was getting cold feet about the pardon he'd granted: half the servants in the king's own castle reeked of fear whenever he got anywhere near them. And he knew he'd contributed to Wendell's anxiety by asking to be shut in the dungeon in the first place. Not that there was anything he could do about that now. But he wanted to prove this killing for what it probably was: a means to firmly convince the king that the pardon had to be revoked; to convince him that wolfs were just too dangerous - too much like animals - for true justice to apply to them.

He was almost shaking with anger again thinking about it. He knew he'd allowed himself to hope too much about the pardon - he'd envisioned a world where his children would never have to live in hiding the way he and his family had. But he realized now that it wasn't going to be possible. Even if, by some miracle, the pardon remained in place, the fear and hate most people felt for half-wolfs would hardly go away.

Virginia's arms tightened around him in a hug. He squeezed her back - not too tightly - and looked down at her face. As always, it helped to calm him.

"Let's go inside," he whispered to her. She nodded, and they set off, arms around each other, for the nearest entrance. The least he could do was comfort his mate. He was very tired of trying in vain to convince Wendell, though he admitted that it probably had not been politic for him to have pointed out that the most glaring reason why a wolf obviously did not kill Emma was that she hadn't been eaten! No wolf, unless insane, killed just because he could, even during the full moon. A wild dog might, but . . .

A idea suddenly occurred to him. It might not work, but he had to try it. It was just possible.

"Virginia?" he asked. "I think I know how to settle this. I hope."

She looked up at him. He could see her face was still very pale, but she didn't protest the delay. Yet he couldn't make her wait out here in the sun for him. He squinted over at the mass of kitchen servants still huddled outside the door. As a unit, they cringed at his gaze. Except for one. He pointed to her and beckoned. After a moment, she grasped that he was talking to her and walked over to them.

_Cripes,_ he thought. _She's no more than a cub! What is she doing working?_

She dropped him a curtsy, which both amused and embarrassed him. Though he hadn't at first intended to, he asked her name.

"Molly, sir," she replied.

"Molly, would you take Lady Virginia up to her room and get her some water to drink and wash her face with?"

She nodded.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

As he'd expected, Virginia began to protest.

"I'll be up in just a moment, Virginia," he said. "I promise. And you're going to need those things anyway."

She didn't say anything else, just quietly turned away with Molly. He thought she looked very tired.

He didn't waste time staring after her when they'd gone inside, however, but rushed quickly back over to where Wendell, the doctor, and Tony were now standing.

"How is she?" asked Tony.

"Tired, I think," he replied. "I sent Molly in with her."

"Ah, yes," Wendell commented. "I noticed her earlier. You think she'd make a good replacement for . . ." he gestured to the body still lying in the tansy.

Mellifict was regarding them all with a sour expression. Wolf ignored both him and the king's remark.

"I believe I can prove to you that the wolf fur found in Emma's hands was not pulled from a live wolf," he said.

"Oh, well," remarked the doctor maliciously, "If she somehow managed to kill it first, where is its body? Unless of course she _ate_ it?"

Wendell ignored Mellifict and nodded to Wolf.

"Go ahead," he said.

He held out his hand for it and the doctor reluctantly surrendered the evidence. He sniffed it again, just to make sure the odor he was looking for was still powerful enough after all the handling. He needn't have worried. The stench of decay almost curled his toes. He handed it to Wendell, who took it but continued to stare at him expectantly.

"The way that smells is definitely the scent of something long dead," he said, giving Wendell what he hoped was a meaningful look. The king drew his eyebrows together in confusion at first, but as Wolf watched, he saw it slowly dawn on him what it was Wolf wanted him to do. And righteous indignation replaced the confusion.

"What exactly do you expect me to do with this?" he spat through clenched teeth.

"Serve justice," replied Wolf simply. "Your sense of smell isn't as powerful as it used to be, but once you've learned something like that, you don't forget it."

The comment might not have worked under ordinary circumstances. Knowing how Wendell felt about any references to his life as a dog, Wolf had only a slim amount of hope that it actually would work; he'd simply had to try. But help arrived from an unexpected source.

"Justice!" roared the doctor. "They're animals! Animals don't deserve justice! Half-wolfs have never been anything but savage criminals and everyone knows it! At least before they stayed in their place. But now they're putting on airs! All this proves is what a mistake that idiotic pardon of your was in the first place!"

Wendell blinked, and his jaw clenched tighter. He turned and looked at the doctor, and then very deliberately raised the bit of fur to his nose.

"You can't be serious!" Mellifict exclaimed.

"It is old fur," the king announced stiffly. "Wolf is right."

"That's highly irregular!" objected the doctor. "I don't see how the way some animal identifies an odor could possibly be used as testimony in a court of law!"

Wendell's expression was unreadable.

"Which are you most interested in, Mellifict?" he asked quietly. "Seeing justice served or persecuting wolfs?"

"Anyone with any intelligence knows it amounts to the same thing," came the reply.

Wendell nodded.

"I see," he said coldly. "Well, as you have already observed, Emma is quite beyond your help, so I don't believe there's any further need for your presence here. You are dismissed."

The doctor began to protest, but Wendell cut him off.

"I am still the king," he declared. "Intelligent or not, my commands _and_ my laws will be obeyed. Now go."

His eyes narrowed, Mellifict swept out of the garden. When he had gone, Wendell absently let the fur fall from his hand, excused himself and went inside. Since identifying the evidence he'd looked at neither Wolf nor Tony.

Wolf turned to leave as well.

"Wait a minute," Tony told him.

"I promised Virginia I'd be right in."

"This won't take too long," his almost father-in-law assured him. "I hope."

"What?"

"Don't you want to know who _did_ kill her?" asked Tony. "Or do you only care about proving it wasn't a wolf? If whoever killed her gets away with it, they're liable to kill someone else, you know. And they may correct that 'old fur' mistake next time."

_Cripes, he's right,_ he thought.

"But just how do we do that?" he asked.

Tony explained the methods he'd seen detectives use on television. Not all of them could be used on Emma, but together they did what they could, Wolf noting that the large bite mark in the center of her throat had been made after she had died and Tony concluding that she had probably been strangled. There was also some evidence that she had recently been picking herbs, although no amounts of any significance were found in her apron pockets. At Tony's insistence, Wolf ripped the apron off her at the waist and handed it to him. Then, at last he went inside to see his Virginia.

He could have used the servants' stairway to reach her; it was closer to hand. But he knew his presence spooked them, so he tried to avoid them when he could. Besides, it wouldn't take him long to make up the difference, he knew, as he hurried along a side passage to the main hall and its central stairway.

* * *

Millie walked slowly from the audience chamber. The king had not agreed to pardon her son, but she still had hope. He had said he'd review the case, but it would take awhile because of her people's habit of not revealing their names. He wasn't certain how many cases he'd have to look through to find her son's, so he had no idea how long it would take, and he couldn't promise any results. But she knew things were definitely better than they had been. King Wendell had actually treated her with respect, which she found doubly amazing, considering she wasn't even one of his subjects. Next she planned to visit the prison to see her son in the hopes that learning his identification number might speed things along. Not that that was the only reason. It had been a long, long time since she'd seen him - since at least a year before he'd been arrested. Going to the prison before wasn't something she'd been able to do, but now, finally, she felt safe enough to try.

Her musings, however, were abruptly interrupted by the sight of a tall, dark-haired man who shot out of a side passage in front of her and turned up the grand staircase. She froze, her mouth open, staring. Then the backwash of air he'd created as he ran swept over her and she knew. Still, he was nearly to the landing before she was able to find her voice.

"Simon?"

He stopped on the landing and slowly turned to look at her. She saw his mouth open just a bit in surprise as he recognized her, and he drifted back down to the main floor in what she perceived as slow motion. It _was_ him, she saw as he drew nearer. Older - she'd tried to prepare herself for that, but it hurt nonetheless, a graphic reminder of all the time gone by - and so thin. Not that he had ever really been fat as her brother had been - Simon had always been too high-strung - but he'd always been big, raw-boned and solid. The man walking towards her now was tall and broad-shouldered, but bony. She suspected that with his shirt off, his ribs would no doubt be clearly visible. Why had she never given much thought to how undernourished he would become in a prison? Guiltily she realized she had, when the news of his arrest had first reached her: Once she'd been assured that he was to be imprisoned instead of executed (the usual method of dealing with infractions committed by their kind), she had reflected that at least the regimented life of the prison might teach him better eating habits. As the oldest of her brother's children, he'd picked up the most of that family's undesirable conduct. Not that Rafe had been free of them, but he was much less frequently seized by bouts of uncontrolled eating. Now she realized that the thought she'd had at the time about imprisonment helping him with that was merely an attempt to emotionally distance herself from him since she had been unlikely to ever see him again. The prison had come near to starving him.

He looked down at her, an expression of wonder on his thin face, a combination of her brother's strong features and his mother's green eyes. But it was what she did not see there that moved something deep inside her she'd thought long dead. Worse than the uncontrolled eating (because that was something Simon had at least_ tried_ to correct, at least when it wasn't full moon), her brother had left both his sons a legacy of hatred of all non-wolfs, which they wore as a mocking, self-righteous attitude of superiority which neither bothered to hide. The parents' executions had served only to elevate them to the status of martyrs. Millie knew this attitude had been responsible for virtually all the trouble the boys had ever gotten themselves into, but she had never been able to eradicate it. And although she was sure her own experience hadn't helped, she tried hard to impress upon them that it had been done by_ individuals_, not by a group composed of all non-wolfs. It had done little good. Simon's imprisonment had been a direct result of his bad attitude, while Rafe's . . . _No!_ She wouldn't think of Rafe, couldn't think of that, not now, not when she had just found Simon, free, whole, and . . . changed. For the smug self-righteousness was gone. How that was possible she didn't know; his personality wasn't the kind to learn such things by force, as imprisonment would have been perceived, unless they had broken him. But he was not broken. In his eyes, she saw love, tenderness, regret . . . and an inner calm he had never before possessed. She felt a tear roll down her cheek, and reached up to brush it away, her wonder at her foster-son's repose becoming also a wonder at herself: Tears of happiness were something she thought never again to shed. Her well had run dry long before and had remained barren ever since. Until now. She took the calloused hand he offered her, hesitating only a moment before leaning against his chest and closing her arms around him, letting her happiness flow unchecked.

* * *

Wolf held his aunt in his arms, nearly overcome by his own guilt. He should have gotten word to her somehow - if he couldn't have gone to see her himself - that he was free and well, but he'd been so caught up with Virginia and everything that had happened that he simply had never thought about it. But now she was here, which meant that she had at least heard about the pardon, though he didn't see how she could have known he'd had anything to do with it, and she was crying. Instinctively, he knew that was a good thing; he'd never seen her cry once in all the time they'd lived together. But if she felt strongly enough to cry at the sight of him now, then he should have thought about her more as well, he thought. Yet even when he'd mentioned her to Virginia the night before last, their own problems had clouded the memory of his duty.

She straightened up and wiped her tears away, looking at him with what he perceived as awe.

"There's a female's scent . . . ?" she inquired.

He smiled; there was no way he could keep himself from smiling, he was suddenly almost giddy with the anticipation of telling her about his mate. But then he remembered what had happened to hers and he wondered if it would be a good thing. Suppose his happiness only reminded her of what she had lost, he wondered? Still, he couldn't ignore her question.

"My mate," he replied quietly.

"Not a half-wolf," she commented.

"No," he agreed. A look of understanding passed between them. He wanted so to tell her everything that had happened to him, but . . .

"I_want_ to hear about it," she told him, with a look that said she understood the reason behind his hesitation. "Please."

So he told her about how he'd scented Virginia first, but hadn't believed a non-wolf could be his life's mate, not until he'd actually met her in person, and how what he was doing when he met her had nearly ruined his own chance for happiness. He described his visit to the psychologist and the revelation about why he ate so much, and his pursuit of her across the kingdoms to prove his love, ending with her rejection of him in Kissingtown, and how he'd been beside himself with despair, but had felt obligated to follow her anyway to make sure she didn't get hurt. And how overcome with joy he'd been to discover that in his absence she'd found she couldn't live without him either. When he finished, he was nearly breathless. It had taken him less than five minutes to describe the entire month-long journey, though he did cut it down to only the parts concerning his relationship with his dear Virginia. One part of their relationship, however, he did not reveal, wanting to keep it as a surprise instead.

His auntie had listened attentively to him, smiling for him, though her expression had grown more and more perplexed as his tale went on.

"Is this _Lady_ Virginia?" she asked when he'd finished.

"Oh," he said, then nodded. "Yes."

"One of the heroes of the Nine Kingdoms?"

He nodded. In her face he saw her suddenly realize who the unnamed half-wolf hero had been. He blushed.

She looked down.

"I heard about the pardon," she told him. "That's the reason I came here. I was hoping I might be able to persuade the king to commute the rest of your sentence."

The guilt overcame him again.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have gotten word to you that I was out."

"No," she replied, looking back up at him. "You did just right. I'm very proud of you."

He blushed again. _I can't tell her Wendell is probably going to revoke the pardon,_ he thought sadly. _Not now. I just can't._

Out loud he said, "I only did it for Virginia."

She nodded.

"They wrote a ballad about it you know," she told him. "The bards are all singing it. That's how I knew what happened. But there's nothing in it about a love story."

He laughed ironically to himself, thinking how typical it was that they would remove as much as possible of the deeds of the non-wolfs from the tale. But it did hurt him to think that the bards had somehow missed the whole point.

"Come meet her," he said.

* * *

It occurred to him that Virginia might not be at her best for meeting company, so as they walked up to their chambers he explained to his aunt what had just happened and Virginia's reaction to it, though he carefully left out all references to a wolf's implied involvement. She was shocked enough as it was to find a murder had just been committed at the royal palace. Wolf assured her that Virginia's father was on the way to finding the killer's identity, as he had done in Little Lamb Village where Wolf had been falsely accused of murdering a shepherdess during their adventure.

Virginia, however, looked much better than he expected. The color had come back into her face and she was sitting on the bed talking to Molly when they walked in. But at the sight of their presence the servant girl had hastily jumped to an embarrassed attention.

"No, it's all right," Virginia told her, holding out a hand and indicating that she was welcome to sit back down. Molly, however, remained standing. Virginia looked curiously at Millie and then at Wolf, obviously waiting for an introduction.

"Virginia," he said, "Remember I told you about my aunt that my brother and I went to live with?" He left the rest of her introduction unfinished, simply gestured in his aunt's direction, looked at her and said, "This is Virginia."

Virginia stood up. Inside, Wolf cringed. He'd wanted her to stay in bed, at least for the rest of the day after all that had happened, but he also knew that he was probably being just a little too overprotective, so he forced himself to say nothing about it. Besides, he thought, his auntie would certainly know what to do if anything started to go wrong. He was waiting for her to notice the cub now. _Any minute,_ he thought . . .

Millie stopped and shot him a curious and amazed glance. He grinned from ear to ear and Virginia started laughing.

"You didn't tell her," she observed.

"No, he didn't," agreed Millie.

"Oh, your expression is priceless," his love told him, still laughing.

"I wanted to surprise you," he explained to his aunt.

"Well you did that," she replied, "Many times over."

Molly was still standing there looking distinctly uncomfortable. Virginia seemed to notice this too.

"Molly," she said, "Why don't you go down and get Wolf and his aunt something to eat?"

The girl nodded and started for the door. Wolf stopped her.

"You need something too, Virginia. Technically you haven't really eaten yet."

From the expression she gave him, he could tell that she wasn't nearly as recovered as she'd appeared.

"There's a big pot of broth in the kitchen, ma'am," ventured Molly. "I could bring you some of that."

Virginia looked at him for another minute, then said, "Okay, yes. Bring me some of that, maybe with some plain crackers. That'll be fine."

The girl left. Virginia looked around then, apparently thinking she wasn't being a good enough hostess. She gestured at a couple of chairs.

"Um . . . why don't you sit down?" she said.

Wolf immediately dragged the chairs over near the bed.

"Why don't you just get back in bed, Virginia?" he told her. _Cripes_, he hadn't really meant to say that. It just slipped out; he couldn't help it.

"I wasn't _in_ bed," she pointed out. "I was just sitting _on_ the bed."

"Haven't you been feeling all right?" Millie asked her. "Besides today, that is? Simon told me what happened. Of course, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

_Oh, cripes!!_

Virginia's eyes had gone wide at his auntie's words. She turned to look at him, wordlessly demanding an explanation. And, oh yes, she did deserve one. She sure did. Why had he never told his creamy love - his mate - the one carrying his child - why had he never told her his name? He didn't know.

"Simon?" she asked, incredulously.

"Yes?" he replied in a small voice.

"Why didn't you tell me your name?"

He knew that was coming. He swallowed.

"I . . ." he began miserably. "I don't know. . . I think . . . I think . . . I just . . . I guess I just hadn't heard it in so long . . . But I know that's no excuse, it's just . . . and I guess I . . . you know I really liked hearing you call me Wolf cause . . . well . . . I haven't . . . I don't hear it like you say it. But that's still not an excuse. I should have told you."

He thought she would be mad, but she didn't look like she was. She looked almost as if she understood, which confused him, because he didn't understand at all why he hadn't told her. He had thought about it, but she was usually asleep at the time, or something else would come up, and then lately it had seemed so awkward, because he had already waited too long . . .

"You don't hear it like I say it?" she asked softly, not mad at all, he thought, though she did sound confused.

"No," he told her. "We just always get called 'Wolf', but its not nice, the way it's said, not like you say it, like my mate saying my name . . ."

Her eyes grew wider. _Oh, cripes, I've made it worse,_ he thought.

"We don't give our names to those outside our . . . pack," he heard his aunt explain.

"Oh, but Virginia," he quickly added, "That's not why . . ."

"Of course it isn't," she said, sounding as if she understood completely. "Wolf . . . Simon . . . don't worry about it, okay?"

She put her arms around him and hugged him close. _I don't deserve this,_ he thought.

After a moment she stood up, though, and bit her lip.

"We should tell her what happened," she suggested tentatively. "Don't you think?" She looked at his aunt. "Wol-_Simon_ said you were a midwife," she said.

His aunt nodded.

"Why, what happened?" she asked.

"Virginia nearly had a miscarriage the night before last," explained Wolf.

"During full moon?" asked his auntie quickly. "At night? Contractions?"

"Yes, to everything," Virginia replied.

Wolf suddenly felt as if a weight was crushing his chest. The questions his auntie was asking were too specific. Something was wrong, he thought. She already knew what it was. Could the full moon affect the cub somehow in spite of what he'd said to Wendell?

"Tell me everything you can remember, starting with the beginning of the evening, not just when you first felt them start."

Virginia told her and Wolf filled in the parts he remembered, including how he'd stopped them, by doing what his aunt had taught him all those years ago. To his horror, his aunt looked absolutely stricken. Her face pale, she sat down heavily in the chair. Wolf could feel his throat closing.

"Oh, cripes," she moaned, "This is all my fault."

That wasn't what he'd expected her to say at all; he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly.

"How could it be your fault?" he heard Virginia say.

His auntie looked at him sorrowfully.

"I'm so sorry, Simon," she said. "I should have told you."

"What?!" He couldn't imagine what could be so terrible. Well, yes he could, he was sure he could imagine lots of things . . . _Oh, cripes!_

She bit her lip and took his hand.

"It's perfectly normal," she told him reassuringly, "Something that happens with lifemates occasionally - though only if the bond is very strong. Each feels what the other feels, while they remain together."

"They were sympathetic cramps," concluded Virginia.

His aunt nodded. Wolf looked at his mate. _He_ had caused her to nearly lose their cub, he thought miserably?

"Of course, expectant mothers don't physically react to the moon; we'd never be able to reproduce if they did," his aunt continued. She looked directly at him, her sad eyes full of guilt.

"You knew that," she said to him.

He nodded.

"But I should have also told you," she said, "That in the rare cases of an extremely strong bond, that also happens to the father. So the mother will be spared the sympathetic reaction."

He blinked.

"But I did react . . ." he protested.

"No," said Virginia. "You got as far from me as possible. You wanted a cell with a window so I'd be downwind from you, and you even changed your clothes, and then you practically hid in the corner behind the bed so I could barely see you, and you wouldn't let me speak."

"But . . ."

"She's right," said his aunt. "The safeguard only works if you remain physically together. I am so sorry. It's my fault. I should have told you. If you hadn't remembered what to do . . ."

"Is that what happened to that woman with that rotten little boy?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "It was similar. Her mate didn't lock himself in a cell of course. Only you would do that."

Virginia gave him a quirky look.

"So is this what is causing his cycle to be so mixed up?" she asked his aunt.

"I'm afraid so," came the reply. "By the way, that rotten little boy, as you remember him, is your brother-in-law."

"What?!"

"He's Deirdre's mate. His name is Stephen. And don't look so thunderish. He loves her very much, as much as you do Virginia. Their first is due at midwinter and he is going through the same thing."

Virginia started to laugh. He shot her a concerned look.

"You don't know him, Virginia," he said.

"Well, you haven't seen him for a long time," she replied.

"Exactly," said his aunt.

"How is Abby?" he asked.

"She is doing fine," she told him. "Going to bard school, like she always said she would, teaching the beginners now. Maybe once she hears the real story, she can do something about getting that ballad corrected."

He smiled, glad to hear his youngest sister was doing what she'd always dreamed of doing. But she had at least always known what it was she'd wanted to do. Unlike himself. Unlike . . . He knew he'd have to ask about Rafe. She'd expect it.

"And Rafe?" he asked, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice.

To his surprise, the question seemed to cast a shadow over his aunt.

"What happened?" he asked. She'd always been glad of any excuse to talk about him before - about either of them, really, it wasn't that she played favorites - that wasn't the source of his resentment. But now he sensed something wrong.

She looked down at her hands.

"I haven't seen him in over a year," she said. The way she said it told him she didn't want to say anything more. He knew he could pressure her, but he wouldn't. She'd tell him when she was ready. But he wondered what could have happened between them that was so terrible. He decided to change the subject.

"Deirdre is pregnant too, you said?"

"Yes," she said. "They'll be cousins virtually the same age."

Wolf tried to put out of his mind who his own cub's uncle was going to be.

"Are you delivering her cub?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she replied, sounding as happy as he thought she would be about that.

"Would you deliver ours?" he asked.

"Wolf . . ." he heard Virginia say, though she didn't continue right away. But he'd been looking at his aunt, and her face did not express the delight he'd thought it would. He drew his eyebrows together and glanced back at his lovely mate, who had suddenly developed the look and smell of a trapped animal. She was glancing quickly back and forth between him and his aunt.

"I . . . I mean . . . I don't mean to . . . um . . ." she stuttered, "But . . ."

His aunt glared at him with an admonished look he hadn't seen since he was a cub. Then she looked at Virginia.

"Don't worry about it," she said, "You won't hurt my feelings. And you're right, it's probably best if I don't."

Her words did seem to calm Virginia, he noticed, but he was really confused now.

"Why?" he asked.

"She's not a half-wolf, Simon," his aunt told him. "There are differences in our anatomies. They're not big differences overall, but enough to be significant where childbirth is concerned. She needs someone experienced in delivering babies from mothers of her own kind."

An image of the royal physician popped into his mind and he nearly growled at it. He was of Virginia's 'kind' he thought, but there was no way Mellifict or any other elf-sucking doctor like him was going to touch his mate or his cub. But who would that leave aside from the gypsies, whom he trusted even less than the doctor?

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Virginia opened the door and Tony rushed in, holding two small glass jars.

"I cleaned out the residue . . ." He stopped suddenly when he saw Millie. "Oh . . . hello."

Virginia jumped in to introduce them.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "Dad, this is Wolf's aunt, who he lived with since he was eleven, so she's kind of like his foster mother." She turned to his aunt. "And this is my dad, Tony Lewis."

To Wolf and Virginia's surprise, Tony smiled at Millie and said, "Foster mother? You mean Wolf was the one you were coming here to . . .?"

His aunt smiled back.

"I'm afraid so," she admitted. "Though it obviously wasn't necessary, for which I'm thankful."

"You two know each other?" asked Virginia.

"I gave Millie a ride this morning," Tony explained. Wolf's jaw dropped. His aunt had accepted a ride from a stranger and even told him her name?

"What's in the jars?" asked Virginia.

Tony looked at what he was holding.

"Oh, I can come back later," he said. "I don't want to interrupt anything."

"No, you're not," she told him. "We weren't really doing anything. Molly's supposed to be bringing us something to eat, but that's all. In fact, she should have been here by now."

"They might have put her back to work in the kitchen," Wolf suggested absently. He was still trying to work out why his normally reticent aunt would have suddenly trusted Tony. Had she changed that much since he'd last seen her, he wondered? He didn't see how it was possible.

Tony set the jars down next to each other on the dresser.

"Like I started to say," he said, "I cleaned out the residue from Emma's apron pockets. Two of them had the remains of fresh herbs in them, so I've put them in separate jars. Unfortunately I don't have the slightest idea what they are, much less what they're supposed to be used for, except that I don't think either of them were what she was laying in. At least they don't smell like it to me."

He turned to Millie.

"Emma was . . ." he started to explain.

"I know," she said. "Simon already told me what happened."

His almost father-in-law stared at him.

"Simon?"

"It's Wolf's name, Daddy," Virginia told him. "But they don't let anyone know them that isn't close to them, so don't say it when anyone else is around."

"Oh, my God, that's right," said Tony. To Millie he said, "I'm sorry, I should have . . ."

"Please don't worry about it," she told him. "It's perfectly all right to say it here." She pointed to the jars. "May I see them? I know a little bit about herbs. I might be able to help you identify them at least."

Tony handed them to her immediately. She unscrewed one, sniffed the contents and wrinkled her nose.

"Rue," she said, handing it back. Then she unscrewed the other. For a moment, she was silent. Then, in an extremely serious voice, she asked, "What was she laying in?"

"I don't know what it was," said Tony.

"Tansy," answered Wolf.

"What's that used for?" asked Virginia.

"Insect repellent," he replied with a shrug. But he noticed then that his aunt's face had gone white. "What?" he asked uneasily.

She closed the remaining jar and handed it back to Tony, then glanced apologetically at Wolf and stared at the floor.

"Those three herbs . . ." she began, "are dangerous to use individually, and don't even necessarily always work, though some people still try. If someone were to use them all together they would probably do the job, but even if they didn't, whoever took them probably wouldn't survive."

"What job?" asked Tony. "What do they do?"

"They're abortifacients," his aunt said. "To terminate a pregnancy."

Tony said something else, but Wolf didn't hear it. Emma had been Virginia's maid. He had no doubt that the herbs had been meant for her.

He opened the door and strode out into the hall. Behind him he heard Virginia call his name, "Wolf?", but the sound of her voice only made him increase his pace. Blindly he forged ahead, his mouth dry. She was following him. He ran faster.

Doors flew by on either side of him, people passed or backed away, he paid them no attention. Down steps with close walls, sweating, his stomach churning, insides twisting, his feet pounded on. Far away he saw a man; someone he should recognize, but it didn't matter. He'd reached his quarry, the blue panel door with gold lettering. There were noises behind it, bad noises, though it wouldn't have mattered to him if the room had been silent. Ignoring the dog's exclamation, he rushed forward. The door was locked, but came easily off its hinges, falling inward onto the floor. The Enemy - the Monster - had been too busy with its new prey to hear him coming. It looked up, mouth open in surprised horror. Then he was upon it.

* * *

Wendell had been about to serve Mellifict his notice; while he thought people were entitled to their own opinions, he resented the doctor's open challenge to his authority. In addition, after having identified the evidence in the doctor's presence as Wolf suggested, he no longer had faith in Mellifict's being able to treat him should he need it, although he couldn't have said precisely why he felt that way.

He was nearly to the man's office when he saw it coming, running towards him down the long hallway in it's half-bent-over loping gait. Shock overcame him and he froze in place as the Being - he couldn't bring himself to call it Wolf, although it clearly once had been; it was wearing Wolf's clothes and had just enough similarity left in it's oddly altered features to still be recognizable as his step-sister's fiancé - bore down on him. Part of his mind screamed at him to run away; told him that this must be the Beast the wolfs were said to carry within themselves, that he was in its path and would be killed, torn open like Emma, his body left to the flies, carrion. Impossible to tell if the creature recognized him with its alien eyes, but he thought, surely, _surely_ something of Wolf must remain; he'd recognized Virginia in that state two nights ago. _Hadn't he?_ But quickly on the heels of that thought, came the memory of Wolf's words, "No wolf remembers." And through it all, which seemed almost as if in slow motion, his mind kept crazily repeating to itself over and over, _But it isn't full moon; it isn't full moon . . ._

The thing glanced cursorily at him as it passed. It grasped the doorknob of Mellifict's office with what once had been a hand, then, with a howl of frustration tore the door from its hinges in one blow, bounding inside almost before it hit the floor. That was when Wendell finally saw what it was after - and the sight chilled him far more than anything the wolf had done: With what appeared to be a thin strand of rope, Mellifict was choking the life out of the scullery maid, Molly.

He looked up in horror as Wolf dove for him, growling, dropping the girl to the floor in his haste to escape. But there was nowhere to go as he backed futilely away, his face gone a pasty white. Molly lay unmoving in a crumpled heap on the floor. It occurred to Wendell that she might need help; at last he managed to persuade his feet to move and ran to kneel beside her. A single drop of blood oozed from the thin red line scored into her throat, but she seemed to be breathing, he thought. He reached out to touch her just as he heard Virginia's breathless voice cry, _"WOLF! NO!"_

He looked up. Virginia was standing just inside the door, her breath coming in great, heaving gasps as if she'd run too far too fast, which she probably had, he thought. Wolf dropped what was left of Mellifict to the floor and flew to her in a single fluid movement, the bloody talons which had once been fingers outstretched. Wendell cringed. Beside him Molly stirred, then jerked violently away, her mind still focused on escaping her tormentor. She fell heavily against a row of bottled specimens lining a bottom shelf beneath the window. Several of the jars fell with the impact. Three of them broke, spilling their contents onto the hardwood, where the liquids ran together and licked at the nearby carpet. The fourth rolled out into the puddle, the rattling of the bones and teeth inside it somewhat muffled by the accompanying piece of furry hide. Wendell paid it no heed. All his attention was focused upon Virginia and the wolf.

It lifted her gently, delicately, in the wicked claws and with a mournful whine pressed its face to hers. The king shuddered, aghast at the sight; the creature's teeth protruded from its mouth like razors, but his step-sister, still panting, folded it into her arms. Then, like some nightmarish version of a lover, it carried her carefully across the room and laid her upon the sofa, where it stroked her and whined some more as she tried to catch her breath. Horribly, to Wendell, it spoke her name, "Virginia," with a whispered voice in which he could still recognize the man it had once been. Then it gasped and its body convulsed. To his horror, Virginia sat upright and threw her arms around it, but then as Wendell continued to watch, mesmerized, the bones of its face seemed to shift beneath the skin; the teeth altered their shape, and the Wolf he knew emerged. He blinked and reached out to touch his fiancé's face, drawing his hand back in shock at the blood still staining it.

Antony appeared at the door along with the wolf-woman whose petition he'd heard less than an hour ago.

"What the hell happened?" his former manservant demanded.

Wendell stared at them for a moment, confused, then absently glanced over at Molly. She was lying on the floor amidst the wreckage of preserved specimens and broken glass, shivering in shock. The king got to his feet, but Antony's long strides reached her first. He lifted her easily in his arms and carried her to the sofa where his daughter lay. Virginia, her breath fully recovered and now trying to calm Wolf, got up to make room for her.

Wendell glanced back at the wolf-woman. _What's she doing here?_ he wondered irritably. _Could she have something to do with Wolf's behavior?_ He watched curiously as she hobbled over to Mellifict's body and appeared to survey with a critical eye the damage done to him. She nodded as if satisfied, then looked directly at him. The gray eyes which he had thought before looked so sad seemed to bore a hole through him; he was unable to stop himself from trying to imagine what she would look like with the Beast inside her released. But all she said was, "You need to call a doctor."

Wendell blinked.

"You mean he isn't dead?" he asked incredulously.

"No," she said, looking back down at the prostrate doctor. Wendell followed her gaze. His clothes were shredded and bloody where Wolf had grasped him by the arm and the front of his shirt, but there was otherwise no mark on him. And despite the circle of wetness beneath him on the carpet and across the front of his trousers where he'd evacuated himself, he was obviously still breathing; the king could see his chest rise and fall.

"But," she continued, "He shouldn't be moved until a doctor has seen him. He probably has several broken bones; my son wouldn't have been gentle with him."

"Your son? _Wolf_ is your son?" How many more shocks would he have today, he wondered?

"My foster son," she clarified, "My brother's child. But he is the one I came to see you about, yes."

She lowered her eyes and went to join the others. Wendell glanced down at Mellifict once more, then strode to the doorway. Out in the hall, not a living soul was in sight, but he knew they were there, hiding. Uncomfortably he realized he could smell their fear; he wished for a moment Wolf had not forced him to see that he could still do this, but he knew the wish was pointless, so he pushed it away. Besides, now, as before, that ability would save him time.

"I know you are all there," he said loudly and authoritatively, "And I want to see you _here_ immediately!" He knew they probably all thought he'd been shredded to ribbons, so the sound of his obviously alive and in charge voice ought to reassure them, he thought. He was right.

Gradually heads popped out from behind corners. It wasn't long before seven servants had assembled before him in the hall. He sent the most reliable to fetch the best doctor in the village. Then he returned to the study.

Molly was clearly badly injured. They had covered her with a blanket, but she continued to shiver as Wolf's foster mother ministered to her. Wendell told them he'd called for a doctor, then explained what he'd seen happen. When he'd finished, Antony told him the conclusion they'd drawn based on the herbal evidence in Emma's pockets. Wendell frowned. Suddenly it seemed to him that he'd just seen something he should have recognized. He walked back over to where the jars had broken during Molly's panic. The single unbroken one lying in the mess caught his eye. He picked it up. The teeth - what was left of the ones still clinging to their sockets after being knocked off the shelf - were unmistakable after what he'd just witnessed. They were the bestial teeth of a half-wolf. He took the jar back over to show the others.

"I guess that proves it, then," said Antony. "That old fur he had must have come off of this skin. And he might have been able to make that wound on her throat with those teeth. They still look pretty sharp. He killed her."

"But why would he want to kill Molly?" asked Wendell.

"She was bringing me soup," said Virginia dully.

They all looked back over to the doctor's desk. On it, undisturbed by the violent goings-on around it, sat the tray of food Virginia had requested, including a bowl of soup. Next to it sat an ominous small amber vial.

"You think she knew what it was?" he asked.

"She wouldn't have had to," Wolf's aunt noted. "All she would have had to do was say she intended to tell Virginia he'd doctored the soup, no matter how much he insisted she do otherwise. He'd know she was suspicious. And if anything happened to Virginia after that, Molly could easily point her finger at him. He'd already killed once. Maybe he thought he could get away with it again without making whatever mistake he'd made the first time. Maybe he thought this time he could really make it look like a wolf kill."

For a moment they were silent, still staring at the doctor's unconscious form on the floor. Then Virginia said, "What I want to know is, that if Wolf's cycle has been interrupted so he doesn't 'change' during full moon, why did he do it now? It's not as if he wasn't around me - even considering the fact that it's not full moon anymore."

Wolf's foster mother bit her lip.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Not for certain. Females will do it to protect young cubs. And I have heard of one instance of a male who survived his mate for a short time doing the same. I could speculate that Simon might react in this way because you cannot, but even if you were a half-wolf, you wouldn't react to the moon while carrying a cub. And I've never heard of this reaction in expectant fathers. Which, of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. But just as speculation, I suspect it has something to do with your not being half-wolf at all. We really have no way of knowing how such a bond would affect one of us."

As he sat at the desk in his own office that evening, Wendell pondered the new information he'd gained about half-wolfs. _Well, you certainly got what you wanted, Wendell,_ he thought. _You wanted to see what they really could and would do. Maybe you should be more careful what you wish for._ Still, Wolf's . . . _Simon's_ - he had been permitted to know Wolf's real name, he'd been told, since he was about to become his brother-in-law, though he couldn't reveal it to anyone - transformation had told him more of what the half-wolfs were actually like. Not entirely, however, he thought, since unfortunately it hadn't taken place during full moon. Though he apparently really became a beast, he obviously had not attacked everyone in his path, being focused only on Mellifict, whom he had believed, quite rightly, was a danger to Virginia. But supposing the full moon caused more uncontrolled behavior? Wendell had now seen how much damage Wolf could cause in that state - he'd broken Mellifict's arm and two of his ribs, in addition to the bone-deep scratches he'd inflicted on the doctor. Nor was Mellifict any longer quite sane - though Wendell supposed the sanity of someone who would commit murder might have been in question to begin with. He was under guard now and heavily sedated in the dungeon, with the village doctor stopping by daily to check on both him and Molly. The man had recommended transferring him to the village hospital, but the king had refused. He had no idea how many people might have agreed in principle with Mellifict's actions and he didn't want the doctor to become some sort of rallying point. Wendell had until the next full moon to make up his mind what to do about the half-wolfs. He intended to use every day until then if it was necessary; he knew now that it wasn't simply the _wolfs'_ behavior he'd need to consider. Mellifict had at least shown him that.

* * *

Tony stumbled out of the mirror into Central Park, blinking and trying to shake off his momentary disorientation. The stench of car exhaust overwhelmed him even here in the middle of the trees; he wondered briefly how someone like Wolf could stand it. It was just something he'd been accustomed to all his life until now, and so had really never noticed before. The dull drone of background noise was the same. Before coming to the Nine Kingdoms, he'd have considered his present location peaceful and serene. It wasn't quiet to him now, though, and he had to fight to keep from being annoyed.

The mere thought of annoyance suddenly made his nose itch. He reached up absently to scratch it, then cursed. _Damn that Rupert for making him dress as a clown!_ he thought, though he knew it was not strictly Rupert's fault. At his own insistence, they had all gone over and over various possible ways Tony could return temporarily to New York without being recognized either by the police or the Murrays, and this had been the only one he thought had the slightest chance of getting him inside the penthouse unrecognized. Even then, he'd insisted on arriving the day after the others, since he was afraid the Murrays would get suspicious if a clown went into the place and stayed the night. He knew he'd miss seeing the miniseries of their adventures that way, but he'd reasoned that they could replay any parts of the show for him that they thought might be significant. Besides, he wasn't really keen on seeing all his foolish mistakes reenacted; he knew he'd made plenty of them. A whisper of logic in his mind told him he hardly needed to come back at all if he had no intention of watching the show (since that was what they'd all returned for), but he hadn't been able to stay completely away. He'd just wanted to see it all again, though now that he was here, he really didn't know why. New York was smelly, noisy and crowded, and to top it all off, he couldn't even scratch his itch without smearing the greasepaint on his face and popping off his rubber nose. But there was no way he was going back to the Fourth Kingdom now after going through having all this get-up put on, he thought. Taking a deep breath, he glanced once again at the address Virginia had printed for him, then set off towards Fifth Avenue, trying not to trip over his floppy feet, trailing the balloons he'd brought back from Kissingtown behind him.

The lobby was much nicer than the one in his old apartment building. To his further delight, he didn't see anyone in it he recognized or who insisted on recognizing him. He found the concierge and gave her the business name they'd all agreed he'd use. After waiting a few moments while she verified that he was expected, she turned a key in the elevator for him and told him to go on up.

The elevator doors closed and he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd wondered briefly if he would be expected to sing some sort of song to go with the costume - like a singing telegram. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to think of anything that went well with a clown carrying heart shaped balloons. A funny love song? He couldn't think of anything offhand except _Muskrat Love,_ and he - thankfully - couldn't remember the words to that. Now he wouldn't have to do it anyway, he thought.. He was headed to the penthouse and that was the only apartment on that floor. No one besides the group he was going to meet should be there.

The doors opened. But instead of opening directly into the penthouse as he'd imagined they would, they parted on a large vestibule - a sort of mini-hallway - that contained a single door labeled with a gold letter 'P'. Beside the door sat a woman reading a newspaper. On the table beside her stood a lamp, a mug of coffee, and a cell phone. She looked up curiously at him as he got off the elevator.

Though he'd never seen the woman before, he was sure this had to be another of Murray's relatives. He pasted a smile on his face and looked away, then knocked rapidly on the apartment door. It seemed like forever before his daughter finally opened it; he could feel the woman's eyes on him the whole time. He'd have to sing, he suddenly realized. _But what?_ His mind was completely blank. At the sight of Virginia, he blurted out the first thing that popped into his mind:

"_Green acres is the place to be_  
_Farm living is the life for me_  
_Land spreading out so far and wide_  
_Take Manhattan just give me that countryside."_

She stared at him for a moment as if he'd lost his mind - which he felt like he probably actually had - then smiled and loudly said, "Come in." He'd gone in and closed the door behind him, then leaned against it in relief. He'd made it.

Later, he wondered almost why he'd bothered. They'd all decided to go out somewhere and discuss it over lunch. So, here he was in the men's room of the _Grill on the Park,_ where Virginia used to work, washing off the last bit of his clown disguise. He knew he'd be taking a bit of a chance that he'd be recognized by the police, but he just couldn't stand to wear the costume any more; he really didn't see how professional clowns tolerated it. And anyway, he reasoned, he'd picked up a change of clothes for himself at the penthouse - he couldn't really bring himself to say 'at home' - and the restaurant wasn't far from the mirror portal. He'd just make sure he sat with his face to a wall.

They'd saved him just that kind of seat, he saw as he walked back out to the dining terrace. Wordlessly, he handed the bundle of clown clothes to Rupert, who took it with an expression of mild distaste, and then sat down next to Virginia. His daughter was still talking to her friend Amy.

"Well when do you think would be a good time?" the girl asked her.

"I really don't know," replied Virginia hesitantly. "You know, it's not necessary, really. We don't need anything."

"Oh, but it's the principle," Amy insisted. "You can't get married without a shower! It's part of the whole deal. And we _want_ to do it. So how long do we have? When is the big day? Have you decided?"

"Um . . three . . . no, two and a half weeks from now, I guess," she told them.

"Wow. That's fast," the girl commented. "Especially since wasn't it just the week before last you said you hadn't set a date yet?"

Virginia smiled.

"Oh, well, never mind," said Amy quickly. "We'll fit it in."

"No," said Virginia, "Look, Amy, I'd just feel bad cause it's not like we can invite you guys to the wedding. It's too far away. And we'll be traveling back and forth and I just don't know when I'll be here."

"Where is it?"

Virginia looked at Wolf, who was busy eating the food Amy'd brought them.

"California," she said.

"Oh. You going to live there too?"

"Yeah, probably. I don't know."

"Well, you think about it, okay? Cause y'know, it can be a kind of going away thing too. And don't worry about telling us at the last minute - whenever you're in town, okay?"

"Okay."

She finally disappeared back into the kitchen.

Wendell leaned forward.

"What exactly is a 'shower'?" he asked. "Some kind of ritual cleansing?"

Virginia laughed.

"No," she said, and explained what it was.

"Presents?" asked Wolf, suddenly interested.

"No," she said. "No, look, nothing we need, okay? Weren't we going to talk about that inscription?"

"What inscription?" asked Tony.

"The one in the play," explained Wendell. "You were in that scene - I mean it happened to you - that's why you didn't need to watch it."

"It's the date, Dad," Virginia told him. "The one Wilhelm Grimm carved into the beam in the dungeon. The date is all wrong."

"How is it wrong?"

"You know it said 1805? Well, that was 195 years ago."

"So?"

"So," said Wendell, "My grandmother was only 150 years old when she went away fourteen years ago. She hadn't even been born yet when this Grimm fellow was here . . . there."

"Well, that doesn't prove anything," Tony pointed out. "He could have gone back several times or spent a big part of his life there."

"True, we did think of that, but it's really the only thing we have to go on," insisted Wendell.

"Or there could be some kind of difference in the way time runs between the two places," Tony continued.

"Time fairies," said Rupert. "Yes, I did wonder about that."

"Well why didn't you mention it?" asked the king.

"It just didn't seem . . . likely," he replied, gesturing expansively at his surroundings.

"Ah," agreed Wendell, "But no matter. Because there just is nothing else in the whole thing to suggest any sort of connection between our worlds."

"Well, yes there is," said Wolf. "But nobody seemed to think it was important, so . . . "

"What is it?" Tony demanded.

"Both the traveling mirrors led here. To the same exact place."

"But we have no idea where the third one led to," Wendell pointed out. "It could easily have led to wherever this Grimm person lived. As Virginia pointed out, the North Sea borders the - whatever the place is called that he's from - and the mirror is at the bottom of the North Sea."

Privately Tony thought it might be rather important too. And he really didn't see much difference between the speculation over either the dates of Grimm's visit(s) or the location of the missing mirror's destination. But he knew better than to try to budge Wendell once his mind was firmly made up. He doubted the man could even hear other people's opinions once he'd formed his own. Hopefully, he thought, if they ran into a dead end pursuing Grimm's visit, the king could be persuaded to look into the fortuitous coincidence of at least two out of three mirrors being focused on New York.

"So where do we start with this?" he asked

"There's a records room in the cellar of the palace," Wendell explained. "It should have some sort of record of Grimm's visit, especially if he was once apparently held prisoner in the dungeon. We can start with that."

They'd agreed on that and then Wendell and Rupert had excused themselves to go walk in the park while Tony talked with Virginia.

"Honey," he said, "I've been thinking. You know, about what you said about not having insurance." He looked around the restaurant as if to emphasize where her insurance had gone. "And I really think that if I was to go back and talk to them, that the Murrays would pay for you to see a doctor. A good one."

"Oh, but Dad . . ."

Wolf had been busily eating a second order of meat he'd called his dessert, but he looked up quickly at Tony's words.

"Oh, that sounds like a great idea!" he said.

"Wolf, no . . ." she protested. "Look, I don't think I can have this baby here in New York. I mean, what if it has a tail? How would we explain that?"

"But Virginia," said Wolf, "Remember my aunt said you needed somebody to deliver it that was experienced in delivering babies from non-wolf mothers."

"Yes, Wolf, but . . ."

"Well, you can't mean you want somebody like . . ." he didn't finish, but they both knew he meant Mellifict.

"No," she said.

"Look, you don't necessarily have to give birth here," Tony told her, though he privately wished she would. If the kid had a tail, they'd deal with that later, he thought, trying not to dwell too much on the image. "But at least see a doctor here until then, okay? I'm just talking prenatal care, that's all. Would you do that?"

She looked at him and then at Wolf, who looked as if he were even more anxious for her to agree than Tony was.

"Okay," she finally said. "But what about the police? What if someone recognizes you?"

"Oh, there's plenty of wanted criminals running around New York," he reassured her, trying to sound as casual as he could. "And I won't be going that far."

They called for the check and Amy brought it. She gestured to the empty chairs where Wendell and Rupert had been sitting.

"I guess the blonde one is gay then, huh?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so," Virginia told her.

"Too bad. He sure is cute."

Not that the high and mighty king of the Fourth Kingdom would stoop to notice a waitress, even if women interested him, thought Tony sarcastically.

"Oh, well," the girl went on, "You remember to be sure and let us know about that shower. And don't worry about already having stuff - we can do some kind of theme thing, okay?"

"Okay," agreed Virginia

They'd walked almost three quarters of the way back to the mirror, following Wolf's lead, when he veered off to the left, saying that was where Wendell and Rupert's trail led. They followed it through a clearing to a row of thickly planted holly. Suddenly Wolf stopped short; he almost reminded Tony of a dog on a point, except, of course, he wasn't pointing.

"Oh, no," he whispered, suddenly dashing off down the length of the hedgerow. Virginia took off after him. Tony ran after Virginia.

It wasn't too long before he heard what had drawn Wolf's attention. From the other side of the tall hedge of holly came the sound of ominous thuds accompanied by voices:

" . . . you filthy, fucking faggot!"

Virginia heard it too. In horror, he saw her stop and then dive in between two of the prickly trees towards the sound.

"Virginia, NO!" he called, but she didn't stop. Wolf, however, did, turning just as her leg disappeared from view. He rushed back to where she'd gone and plunged in right behind her. Resigning himself to scratched skin and torn clothing, Tony followed, keeping as close to Wolf as he could to minimize the damage to himself. They broke free at nearly the same time. Before them, in a small clearing, lay Wendell and Rupert, unmoving. Over them stood four black-dressed, shaven-head ruffians. The nearest, a set of brass knuckles in his gloved hand, leered at Virginia, and Tony realized, with a horrible feeling of futility, that he could never reach her in time.

* * *

The jogger stopped abruptly on the path when he saw the skinheads start to threaten the gay couple. Carefully, he edged himself over to a copse of trees to wait, noting ironically that although the tallest one tried to handle the situation with an air of authority, and neither man appeared at all cowed (as books on the subject invariably suggest such situations be handled), it did them little good. They were attacked all the same and soon went down under the greater numbers and weaponry. But the jogger had been waiting for the first punch to be thrown and had quickly dialed 911 on his cell phone to report the incident. It was as he folded the phone back up to put it away that he saw the woman suddenly materialize out of the hedge. The nearest skinhead saw her too.

"Julie . . ." the jogger whispered. With a soft thunk, the phone fell to the ground, unnoticed. His eyes no longer saw the scene before him, but had returned to a windowless room, full of cold stainless steel drawers, the atmosphere heavy with disinfectant - a drawer being opened - a form zipped into a black plastic body bag - the bag unzipping - endlessly - forever - frozen in time - and then her face - bruised and purple, encrusted with blood - dead. Dead.

He gasped and jerked, scraping his elbow on the bark of the tree. Two men materialized just behind the woman. The one nearest her screamed, "Virginia!" Then, as the jogger watched, he changed his shape. There was no other word to describe it. His eyes began to glow, and as he took off after the skinheads, who had run from him in terror, he changed more and more with each step, his body bending forward, his teeth lengthening, his fingers transforming into long claws. The woman called ominously after him: "Wolf, no! Come back!"

The jogger blinked. Far away he heard a telephone ring. It rang again, twice more. He looked down. It was his phone. His hand shaking, he picked it up and opened it; heard his name being spoken, a request for him to go. He switched it off and set off back the way he had come, his pace increasing until he was racing away as fast as he could.

* * *

Virginia watched helplessly as Wolf dashed off after the gang of men. She'd felt a little twinge of cramping, but nothing worse than her period had ever given her, and it hadn't lasted long - the change had come over him so suddenly. It was nothing compared to what she'd gone through in the dungeon, but she wondered momentarily how often it was going to happen and if that was really a good thing. Any further thoughts she might have had on that subject got pushed aside, however, as she realized that Wendell and Rupert needed help badly.

"Just let him go, Virginia. He'll be fine," she heard her father say. "We need to do something for them here."

She knelt down by Rupert, who was closest to her. He wasn't quite unconscious, and he moaned and tried to raise his head. She looked at his bloody nose, bruised face, and the blood streaming from a cut in his temple and told him to just lie still and not move. He didn't appear to hear her, so she tried holding him down, but it only made him struggle harder.

"Dad!" she cried.

"Yes, I know!" he called back from where Wendell lay. She looked up and saw that he was having the same problem, though with a bit more success since her father was a lot more massive than the king.

Finally, Rupert quit struggling and she thought she'd gotten her message through to him.

"We've got to call someone, Dad," she said. "Like an ambulance."

As if in answer to her statement, she suddenly heard a siren. She looked up in surprise, realizing she was hearing it inside the park, getting closer to them. Her dad suddenly stood up, his expression changing to that of a trapped animal.

"Oh, my God," he said. "Virginia, I'm still wanted for that robbery! If I'm here . . ."

"Go on," she said. "I'll meet you at the new apartment."

"I can't leave you here by yourself!" he insisted. "Where the_hell_ is that Wolf?"

"Dad, just _go!_ I'll be fine! They're almost here!"

He gave her a pained expression, but ran off towards Fifth Avenue. A few seconds later an ambulance appeared, bouncing across the unpaved ground from the opposite direction, a police car serving as its escort.

* * *

Oddly enough, it was the woman he recognized, with her short, wavy brown hair and pixie features. Only after he had walked halfway over to her did he realize she was standing next to the man he'd hallucinated as changing his shape. The recollection made him stop for a moment to reconsider the offer he was about to make. He stared down at the waxed green vinyl of the E-room floor. Could he trust his judgment enough should it become necessary to make a formal statement, he wondered? He'd thought so, but that was before what he'd seen today had brought it all back to him.

_No,_ he thought, _I owe it to them. I should have stayed there and rendered aid until the ambulance arrived. The call I responded to was not an emergency._

Trying not to look at the man, he walked up to the woman. She looked at him curiously with wide blue eyes.

"Excuse me, Miss?" he began, then hesitated uncertain how to proceed. He could feel the man's gaze boring into him, and forced himself to look him in the eye and include him in what he was saying. To his profound relief, the man had perfectly normal human eyes of an indeterminate bluish-green - a stark contrast to the olive skin and black hair - but there was nothing supernatural about them, or about the man at all. He even needed a shave.

He felt silly then for apparently expecting something else, and continued, "I was in the park jogging earlier, and I witnessed the attack on your friends."

"Oh, are you the one who called the ambulance?" the woman asked.

"Yes," he admitted, "But what I wanted to say was that if they need a witness - if the police do, that is - please have them call me."

He pulled a card out of his wallet and gave it to her.

"Thank you," she said, sounding like she really meant it. "And thank you for calling an ambulance."

He nodded, smiled and left. Truthfully, he hadn't wanted to be thanked for the little he had done. He felt too guilty for not sticking around.

Virginia looked down at the card. It read: _Thomas Oberon, M.D. OB/GYN._

* * *

Murray rushed ahead of Tony so he could hold the glass door to the emergency room open.

"Now you remember our agreement," Tony reminded him.

"Oh, yes, mast . . . sir," he replied.

Tony looked around. In front of him was a long counter, with several people busily working behind it but none of them had looked up as he'd entered. He started over to it, but Murray scampered in front of him.

"Shall I inquire for you, ma . . . sir?" he asked hopefully.

Tony started to say no, resisting the impulse to shove Murray out of his way. He was already tired of his constant servitude, even though he'd managed to persuade (read: order) Murray & Co. to refrain from calling him master and kissing his butt in public. But he held the thought that he wouldn't have to put up with him much longer and decided that it might be best overall if Murray did make the inquiry since they might have hidden cameras and he, Tony, was still a wanted man.

So he said, "Sure, go ahead."

Murray smiled happily, but just then Tony saw a familiar figure come out of a doorway down the hall.

"Never mind," he told Murray quickly, and called to his daughter, "Virginia!"

"Dad!" she exclaimed, and walked up to them.

"What happened?" he asked. "How are they?"

"They'll be all right," she assured him. "They're just beat up pretty badly. Wendell's nose got broken and they think Rupert has a concussion. Both of them have a couple of cracked ribs too. But they're acting pretty normal, so that's good. Look, why don't you go in and see them? I've got to go to the ladies' room."

She was right, he decided, after he'd ordered Murray to stay out in the hall and had gone on in. They were acting pretty normal.

"Antony!" Wendell had exclaimed. "Thank goodness you're here! Do you realize they expect us to stay here and remain hooked up to these appliances for who knows how long?" He indicated the IV still inserted into his arm.

"Something definitely has to be done," Rupert agreed. "They're ordering Wendell about! I mean I know he isn't king of _your_ kingdom, but you can't imagine the indignity of what he's had to put up with!"

Tony noted that they were both still wearing their own rather bloodstained trousers and hadn't yet had to suffer the indignity of wearing a hospital gown. He smiled and said nothing. Not that he could have if he'd wanted to. Wendell continued on, "Virginia told us we had to stay here because if we tried to leave they'd demand payment of the bill. Is there some way you can take care of that?"

Tony said yes, he'd brought Murray along just for that purpose.

"Wonderful," sighed Wendell. "It couldn't be soon enough, as far as I'm concerned. Not that I have any quarrel with the medical treatment we've received, you understand, don't you Antony - I'm certain it's the best possible here - but we're used to a bit less primitive conditions."

"Quite," chimed in Rupert.

_Less primitive?_ thought Tony. _Are they kidding?_ No, they didn't look like they were.

Some of his confusion must have shown on his face, since Wendell sighed again and explained, "Magic, Antony. Our doctors have routine access to magic, which of course isn't available here."

"Oh," he replied, then looked around, realizing for the first time that something was missing. "Where is Wolf?" he asked. "He's not still out chasing down those . . .?"

"No, he's here," Wendell interrupted. "Somewhere, though I haven't seen him in awhile."

Tony decided that Wolf probably had the right idea. He really couldn't imagine shutting himself up listening to these two complain if he didn't have to.

"Well, I'll just go and pay the bill," he said, turning to leave.

"Yes!" cried Wendell after him. "And hurry!"

After dispatching Murray to take care of their bill, Tony walked back up to the front desk himself, in the direction Virginia had gone. He decided she was taking an awfully long time in the bathroom. Sure, she was pregnant, he thought, but he was starting to get worried that something was wrong. Twice in the last week Wolf had abruptly gone through that "change" that Millie had said caused Virginia to nearly miscarry. And though she'd assured him it hadn't bothered her that way the first time, and it apparently hadn't bothered her earlier today either, he was still worried that she might be having some kind of delayed reaction. So he sighed with relief when he turned the corner and found Virginia and Wolf sitting on the sofa together in the waiting room, staring at the television.

"There you are," he said as he walked over to them.

"Oh, Dad, hi," whispered Virginia abstractedly. "Shhh." She pointed towards the television.

He looked at it in time to see a blonde woman in the middle of delivering the news:

" . . . tentatively identified as the gang who attacked and robbed two men in Central Park earlier today, claim to have been chased through the park by a werewolf. In other news . . ."

"Oooohhh," murmured Wolf worriedly.

Virginia patted him on the knee.

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "No one will believe them anyway. They'll think they're just trying to get out of being punished for what they did to Wendell and Rupert. And besides, we're going back to the Fourth Kingdom right now. Right, Dad?"

"Yeah, I think so," he replied. "Murray's paying their bill now. Oh, by the way, I wanted to tell you that I ordered Murray and his family to be your servants as well as mine. Except for the ass-kissing, of course. I wish I could un-order them to do that for me, but I've tried and they won't listen."

"No, that was part of the wish," said Wolf.

"And I've got them looking for a doctor for you, Virginia," he continued. "But I made it clear that I didn't want the doctor to be one of_ them_. And they'll pay for everything."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" exclaimed Wolf.

Virginia gave him an admonished look.

"Okay, Dad," she said, then looked past him.

He turned around to see Murray walk up, a smile on his face. He handed Tony some papers.

"Everything is paid, mas . . . sir," he said. "But they need to sign these release forms."

Tony took them.

"All right. I'll be right back," he said. "Tell you what, why don't you go get the car? I don't think they're going to be able to walk all the way back to the park."

Murray nodded and left. Tony went back to the room, where Wendell and Rupert were now arguing with a thin, gray-haired nurse. Wendell looked up in relief as Tony entered.

"Antony!" he exclaimed. "Would you please inform this woman that we're not staying? I can't seem to get that through to her."

She turned to them.

"They are obviously in no condition to . . ." she began, but Tony cut her off.

"Yes, they are leaving," he said. "I happen to know you can't hold people against their will."

He handed each man the appropriate piece of paper.

"But you each need to sign one of these forms to get out," he said.

"What is it?" asked Rupert. Wendell was silent for once, busily reading the page.

"It just shows that you're aware the hospital doesn't think you should be released, but that you intend to leave anyway," Tony explained.

Wendell finished reading and scribbled his name onto it. Rupert followed his example. The nurse pursed her lips.

"You are both going to be very sorry you did that," she warned, but she removed their IVs.

* * *

As they'd piled into the car, Murray'd gotten a call on his cell phone. He beamed happily at Virginia as he hung up.

"Good news, Mistress!" he announced, "We've found you a doctor. One of the best in the city! And we were able to get you an appointment for one o'clock next Wednesday, if that is convenient for you, of course."

"It's fine, I guess," she replied. "Who is it?"

"Dr. Oberon," he said happily, "Thomas Oberon."

Virginia reacted to the information with what Tony perceived as mild shock. He wondered why. Did she think he was jumping in and trying to run her life? Was he? But then he noticed that a smile had crept onto her face, so decided he couldn't have done too much damage.

Murray dropped them off in front of the _Grill_. There was quite a bit of traffic, however, so he was unable to pull away immediately, and they didn't want to set off for the mirror while he was still in sight.

"Why don't we sit down and order something?" Wolf suggested.

"Yes, good idea," Wendell agreed. "Let's sit down."

"You going to make it to the portal?" asked Tony.

"Of course we are," replied Wendell indignantly. "There's just no point in standing around while we wait for that Murray person to leave."

Tony noticed, however, that he and Rupert did look rather pale. But he didn't say anything about it.

Amy approached them.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "What happened?"

They were saved from explaining it all to her when she continued, "That wasn't you that ambulance came to get, was it?"

They admitted that it was and she fussed over them for a while longer until they finally made it clear they'd really like something to drink and she left.

Wendell leaned across the table.

"Antony," he began, "I've been meaning to ask you - when those hoodlums attacked us, they called us 'faggots'. Of what significance is that? Does it mean something in particular?"

Reluctantly, Tony told him what it meant. Wendell stared at him incredulously.

"Do you mean," he said, "That in this completely moralless society - and forgive me Tony, but that's what it is - they have arbitrarily invented some . . . some pseudomoral just so they can have someone to prosecute?"

"No," Tony replied. "It's just that some people see it as threatening. So they attack out of fear."

"Threatening?" Wendell nearly shouted, then realizing he may have raised his voice too much, continued more quietly, "How can it be threatening?"

Clearly uncomfortable, Tony recited to him the arguments he'd heard - of how some heterosexuals thought those like Wendell would try to seduce or entrap them. Virginia looked pointedly away.

Wendell was nearly livid.

"Then the contention is," he spat, "That I must _also_ surely be a rapist?!"

"Not exactly."

"What else would you call it?"

Tony didn't reply. He considered trying to explain how AIDS fit into the problem, but didn't want to bog himself down in a lot of medical arguments about which he knew virtually nothing. And he suspected that his own lack of knowledge in that area would only serve to prove Wendell vindicated in his outrage, since if Tony was ignorant, then so would be most other people. Not that he didn't think Wendell had a right to be outraged. Tony didn't think anyone had a right to be beaten half to death for minding their own business, no matter what business it was, even though until he'd met Wendell, he'd never been especially tolerant himself.

He looked away in embarrassment and his eyes met Wolf's. In them he saw some secret amused knowledge, heavy with irony. It made him wonder suddenly what the half-wolf was thinking, but his pursual of that thought was cut short by Amy returning with their drinks.

"I should like to return home as quickly as possible," Wendell stated.

"Oh, I don't blame you," Amy sympathized. Then to Virginia, she said, "So do you have any idea yet when you might be back in the city?"

"Oh, yeah," replied Virginia, and looked at her father. "Next Wednesday, isn't it?"

"Okay, good! We can have your shower then."

"Oh, wait a minute, no. I'll be busy in the afternoon."

"Well we can do it in the morning," came the reply just before Amy bounced off to greet another customer.

"May I remind you, Antony, that it's in our best interest to return to my kingdom as quickly as possible?" Wendell intoned. "At least I presume we still intend to scour the records room at the palace for any evidence of that Grimm person's visit?"

"Yes, yes," he replied. "We'll go. Just drink your drink."

* * *

They managed to make it through the mirror that time without any incident, although Tony noticed that Wendell and Rupert looked quite pale by the time they'd arrived in the dungeon cell where the mirror was now guarded. Servants were called for at once to tend to the two. Tony realized they were in no condition to research Grimm's visit and probably wouldn't be for quite some time.

"Wendell," he began, "We could get started on the research if you could just have someone show us to that record room."

Wendell looked at him, confused.

"What research?" he asked.

"On Wilhelm Grimm," Tony reminded him. "On when he was here."

"Who is Wilhelm Grimm?"

Mystified, Tony glanced at Virginia. She looked as alarmed as he felt.

"You mean you don't remember what we were going to do?" she asked Wendell.

"We returned so that Rupert and I could be treated by our own doctors," Wendell informed her, then, after a moment of consideration, amended what he'd said to, "Fourth Kingdom doctors, that is."

Tony looked at Rupert.

"Do you remember?"

"Remember what?" he asked, frowning as if they were playing a trick on both he and Wendell.

Tony took a deep breath.

"You watched the play," he explained carefully. "It showed where we found a date carved into a beam in the dungeon by Wilhelm Grimm, who is from our - mine and Virginia's - world. But the date was before the Golden Age, so we came back to research exactly when he had been here and for how long. You said there was a records room in your palace that would have an account of his visit in it."

Wendell looked steadily at him.

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Antony," he said.


	6. V The Forgotten Prophecy

_Disclaimer: _ Grandma's politically incorrect opinions are not the opinions of the authors

* * *

V - The Forgotten Prophecy 

"Virginia . . ."

Wolf was not happy. He hated magic and he was absolutely sure magic was involved in what was happening, although at this rate he wasn't sure how long he could even trust what he was absolutely sure of. It was quite obvious to him that Wendell and Rupert had forgotten something which Tony and Virginia could remember perfectly. He might have been inclined to blame their loss of memory on their injuries, except that he himself could not remember - even from one moment to the next - what Tony and Virginia were talking about (what was it again?). All he was sure of at the moment was that he must have forgotten - and this was so obvious to him that he expected that part of his memory to fade at any moment, because it was not obvious at all to Wendell and Rupert. Wendell at least, he thought, should realize it. Kings had a lot of schooling that covered things like that.

His mate's lovely eyes had fastened on him and their clear blue gaze was almost enough to drive all the thoughts of their problems completely away. Fortunately, her words planted his feet back on the ground.

"Don't tell me you don't remember, either," she said.

"Well, I . . ."

"Wolf!" she cried with dismay. "How could . . .?"

"Oh, great!" exclaimed Tony at the same time, irritated.

"I think it's a forget spell," he blurted.

"Really?" asked Wendell, intrigued. "Then why hasn't it worked on them?"

"Because they're not from here?"

"But you're from here and you remember," ventured Tony.

"No, I don't," he admitted, "I just know that I forgot."

"Forgot what?" asked Wendell.

"Never mind."

"I think we should go back," Wolf suggested. He hoped they wouldn't argue. It had to be soon, he knew.

"To New York?" asked Wendell incredulously. "Absolutely not. I will not go back to that teeming, moralless, abode of hypocrites (no offense to either of you)!"

"Oh, no," Tony agreed, "No, of course not, your majesty. You and Lord Rupert need to stay here and recover anyway. But before you go - could you have someone direct me to the records room of your palace? You know, the place where all the historical documents are kept?"

Wendell frowned.

"What would you want to see that for?" he asked. "It's just a lot of boring records - business transactions, that sort of thing."

"Well, because we - Virginia and I at least - need to do some research on the stuff the forget spell is making you forget."

"What forget spell?" asked the king, irritated. "I haven't forgotten anything!"

"We really need to go rest," put in Rupert.

"Ton_-ee_!" Wolf was really getting agitated now. They needed to hurry before he became as resistant to knowing what had happened as those two already were. It was really a strong spell, he thought.

To his dismay, Tony waved him away.

"Oh, I need to do a bit of research for my bouncy castles," he said to the king, a smile plastered on his Jovian face.

"Yes," agreed Wendell. "Go right ahead!"

"And I'm really going to need to go through a lot of old records, to see what kinds of materials might have been ordered in the past. You got anything like that around here?"

The king thought a moment.

"Yes, there's a records room in the cellar," he said. "I don't know if it'll have what you want, but you might try there."

While Wendell directed a lackey to handle the situation, Tony turned to Wolf and Virginia, angling his head so the king couldn't see his expression.

"Go ahead!" he whispered to them. "But be careful!"

In the end they just sat down on a park bench. They'd considered going back to the _Grill_ or the penthouse, but didn't want to get stuck talking to either Amy or the Murrays, so they'd simply gone and bought a spiral notebook and pen at a store and come back to the park. Wolf's memory of the play and the research they'd planned to do on Grimm came back to him, he thought, rather slowly. He'd expected to be hit with it all at once as soon as he'd passed through the mirror, but he'd needed the time they'd spent shopping. And even now, as he wrote down everything he could think of that concerned their mission (as he imagined it now that he realized there was something fighting against them), he was remembering more and more as he wrote.

It had been his idea to have him write it all down - so that when he invariably forgot, as he expected to do once he returned to the Fourth Kingdom, Virginia could show him what he'd written in his own handwriting. So far he'd managed to fill nearly five pages - by making sure to include the tiniest details, though he thought it was rather disconnected because his memory was still so faulty. He'd been sure to preface the entire thing with the words:

_There is a forget spell! You won't remember this! Eventually you won't even remember that you forgot it!_

_THERE IS A FORGET SPELL!!!!!!_

He hoped that would be enough to make him pay attention, though from the way Wendell had acted, he couldn't be sure.

"Are you finished?" Virginia asked him after he'd spent about fifteen minutes finally not writing anything.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't think of anything right now, but suppose we go back and there's something else? I'd forget it and never know the difference. Did you read it? Do you think that's all?"

"Well, yes, it looks like it to me," she said. "But if you're not comfortable stopping there, I suppose we could spend the night here and go back tomorrow. You'd remember anything else by then, don't you think?"

"I guess."

In the middle of the night he remembered what it was.

He didn't know what it was that had awakened him, but he wasn't sorry that it had. Virginia lay beside him, asleep, and he sighed with contentment as he listened to her soft breathing and inhaled her sweet scent. In that moment, his life seemed so perfect and magical to him that he wanted to savor it forever. He glanced from the quietly sleeping form of his mate to his fantastical surroundings, lit in a ghostly glow by the ambient light from outside.

It was the light that had most impressed him at his first sight of the place - the thousands of windows glowing in the darkness. The feeling that he had come to a place where someone was home, waiting. Of course, Virginia's scent had underlain the vision, though mixed up with the dog prince's. But the more he thought about it the more he concluded it was part of his - their - destiny to meet here, in this place.

And that made him remember how odd he had thought it was that both the traveling mirrors led here.

He got out of bed and walked through the bathroom out onto the terrace, carrying his notebook and pen. Though he could have written well enough in just the light from the city spilling in through the bedroom window, he wanted to make sure that everything he put down was completely legible - and he didn't want to wake Virginia. The terrace had nice hidden lights that lit the place up without blinding him. He turned them on and sat down.

_Both traveling mirrors lead to New York. No one else thinks so, but I think this is important. Especially because it's the last thing I remembered when I was writing this! __DON'T FORGET!!!!!_

He sat back and read what he'd written - the entire five pages of notes. Yes, he thought. That was all. He didn't feel like he was still forgetting something any more. Smiling, he turned off the lights and went back to bed.

* * *

Virginia stared at her naked self in the bathroom mirror. She didn't look pregnant yet, she thought - no sign of a tummy forming or anything. Nor did she look at all fat; there was no place on her you could "pinch an inch". Her breasts were not swelled up (although they did ache a little). Yet she had felt pregnant now for most of the week, especially today. Today she'd not only felt pregnant, but huge. 

She stared down at the pair of jeans she was holding in her right hand. What had possessed her to try them on, she wondered? _You wanted to prove to yourself that you weren't getting big, so you were going to zip these up and tell yourself 'so there!'._ Except it hadn't worked out that way. Not only couldn't she get them zipped, but the waistband was an inch too small.

_Well, they were always tight,_ she reasoned. _These are the tiny jeans. The smallest ones you have. _She sighed. _Yeah, but they weren't this tight._

She had tried to force herself into them, the way she'd seen some girls do - by laying down to zip them up - and she'd almost managed, except the way they'd felt then had made her feel ill.

That was the real problem, she thought. Everything she did now seemed to make her nauseous. She didn't have morning sickness - she felt perfectly fine every morning - but tiny, little everyday things would bring it on: The smell of certain foods would do it (bacon was one of the worst, and she knew Wolf just didn't understand. How could she be carrying _his_ child and get sick at the smell of bacon frying?), but it wasn't limited to food. For the past week, she'd been helping her father dig through stacks of paper in Wendell's record room. And after the first day, the odor of that place, with it's ancient, crumbling ledgers and tomes, had begun to make her ill, until yesterday, when she'd actually thrown up.

Predictably, Wolf had gone ballistic when that had happened, reacting like she might be dying of some disease, and when she'd tried to calm him down by just telling him it was the smell of the records room that caused it, he'd only said - again (she'd stopped counting how many times now that he'd said this) - that he didn't understand why she had to help her father with his bouncy castle project. Upon reflection, she realized now that Wolf's attitude had probably contributed a lot to her upset stomach. The first day he'd actually managed to help them a little bit - although they'd had to re-check whatever he'd looked through, since even he had acknowledged that he couldn't reliably remember what he was looking for from one moment to the next. At least that day he'd consulted the notes he'd made in New York on his own. When he woke up on the second day, however, he didn't remember anything. She'd shown him the notes and he'd read through them, but as soon as he put the notebook down it was as if it had never existed. After that it had gotten worse. Much worse. He'd started objecting to the time she spent in the records room. She tried to tell herself it was just the forget spell, but a small corner of her mind kept reminding her that she really hadn't known him all that long. Suppose he was really that controlling? He hadn't seemed like it so far, but what if he were just suppressing it? He'd told her that was what the magic shoes had done - bring out the things she was suppressing (and he'd been right; she'd tried to seduce him to get them back. The shoes had known what being near him did to her way before she had. The corners of her mouth quirked at the memory). She was getting married to him in a week. That was enough to make her nervous all by itself, and Wolf's reaction to the forget spell only made it more stressful. She thought it was odd, her new reaction to stress. Always before, she'd just tightened up and blocked everything out. She'd get headaches from doing it, but nothing worse. Now it was as if her whole body were getting in on the act, and she wasn't sure if it was from opening up to Wolf in the first place or some side effect of being pregnant.

It was very tempting for her to just call the whole thing off - just say no, she wasn't getting married, not now, not ever. But she couldn't do that - it would hurt Wolf too much, and it wasn't fair to him for her to decide on the basis of the effects of the forget spell that he'd make her miserable. He was perfectly fine and wonderful otherwise. He'd even reminded her about the shower Amy was throwing for her, which she had forgotten about.

The shower was what had really gotten her to questioning the effect of the spell on Wolf. He'd wanted to attend it and she'd had to tell him it was a ladies-only party. Of course he'd pouted and whined a little, but it was all playful sorrow, and then he'd left her alone - sort of. Amy had asked to hold it at the penthouse, and Virginia couldn't very well have thrown Wolf out for it when she knew he didn't have anywhere to go. He had no friends in New York. It had occurred to her suddenly that he had no friends anywhere - he'd been in prison for nine years.

It wasn't as if Virginia herself had many friends. Amy might have thrown her a shower, but in Virginia's mind, they weren't that close; Amy liked any excuse for a party. And the people she'd invited were all girls from work.

Virginia knew how she'd feel if Wolf had spent the week working on something she didn't understand and couldn't participate in. She'd be bored out of her mind - and she was sure she wouldn't be as understanding if at the end of the week he'd announced he was holding a get-together for the guys in their apartment and she was expected to stay in the other room out of sight (or leave entirely if she preferred). In effect they were both very much alike in one way: they really only had each other. That made her realize he was less controlling than he was lonely. And she understood that completely.

So she couldn't really get mad when she'd caught him spying on them at the shower. He'd effectively crashed it, but none of them really seemed to mind, except for Candy. She'd turned white as a sheet and claimed she'd forgotten an appointment and needed to leave early shortly thereafter. Now that Virginia had seen the television show about their adventure, she suspected what was the matter with Candy - she remembered the scene in the restaurant storeroom where Wolf had asked her for Virginia's address. Annoyingly, that scene hadn't lasted as long as Virginia had wanted it to. When she'd asked Wolf what he'd done, he'd claimed innocence - saying he'd 'persuaded' her to tell him. Virginia had suspected there was more to it than just that, but he seemed so taken aback by her suggestion that he'd seduced Candy that she was inclined to believe him. Maybe she really was his first. It had been hard for her to believe that a guy as sexy and charming as Wolf would wait only for her, even if he was from a fantasy-land. And he was charming. He had the girls at the shower - sans Candy - eating out of his hand. Virginia knew that, given other circumstances, he could have had any one of them.

It was at the shower when she'd first started to feel big. Not feel in a physical way, but as a mental image, resulting from a combination of Wolf's charm on the others and the theme Amy had decided on for the party: They'd all bought her maternity clothes.

The girl had apologized from the beginning, before Virginia had opened the first present. She'd said she'd decided on the theme based on something she'd overheard Virginia saying at the _Grill_ - and if she'd gotten it wrong, they'd take everything back. But she hadn't said more than that, leaving it as a surprise for when she opened the first box. Virginia had been almost dumbfounded at the contents, but she'd managed to tell Amy that yes, she'd gotten it right and not to worry. Of course, when Wolf found out what the presents were, he was ecstatic, which only charmed them more.

But if that wasn't enough to make her feel huge, she had her first doctor's appointment right afterwards. She and Wolf had gone together, and she'd enjoyed seeing which of the two men was more surprised at their second meeting, deciding Dr. Oberon won that honor. But beyond that, the doctor had confirmed beyond all doubt that she was indeed pregnant. Not only that, but he'd managed to press on her stomach in certain way and tell her she was 'very full'. Those words still echoed in her mind, as did his pronouncement that her baby was due around the first part of June. There had been a woman in the waiting room who had brought her new baby with her for her postpartum checkup. Looking at it, Virginia wondered how she was going to go from getting queasy from everything she saw or smelled to that by the beginning of next summer, when so far there was no visible change in her body. Or was there?

She looked down at the jeans again. _No,_ she thought. _There's not really a change you can see, but there is a change. 'Very full' - what a way to put it._ She bit her lip and sighed. _June,_ she thought. _Wow._

* * *

Tony carefully measured off the sections of the records room and marked them, first with chalk and then with string. It reminded him of pictures he'd seen of an archaeological dig, he decided, and the analogy made him smile. Oddly enough, it had been Wolf who had come up with the plan. Not that Tony had liked it at first - it meant he'd have to go through everything he'd already discarded - again. But the more he thought about it, the more the plan made sense, given what they were fighting. 

He'd gotten very discouraged in the past week. Not only had he found nothing but stacks of bills of lading and other equally interesting documents, but Virginia had gotten sick and Wolf hadn't helped the situation by whining constantly about how much time she was _not_ spending with her fiancé. In fact, on that last day before the those two left for New York, when Virginia had gotten sick to her stomach, Tony had nearly been ready to call it quits, he'd felt so guilty for forcing her to search with him when she'd told him all week that the smell of the room made her nauseous. He'd taken her comment as the kind of thing a pregnant woman says, not really assigning much importance to it. Christine had complained of similar ailments when she was pregnant with Virginia, but she'd never actually gotten sick. But then Christine had pleaded illness for many things. Now he felt guilty for brushing off the both of them. He hadn't been very happy with Wolf's behavior, either, although Virginia had kept assuring him it was only a result of the forget spell. It wasn't until they'd returned, however, that he'd actually believed it.

During their stay in New York, Wolf had written a virtual book of directions about how to beat the forget spell. It involved sectioning the room off and then going through each section one by one, marking them as they finished. That way, the critical part would not be overlooked. Wolf had written down that he suspected it already had (Tony couldn't talk to him, by now he'd forgotten again, although he was staying out of the way now since Virginia was no longer helping). He'd also written a massive apology on the first page, not so much to Tony as it was for anything and everything he'd ever done to upset Virginia. Reading it, Tony thought it was so effusive that it should surely be good for anything Wolf had done wrong during three or four past lifetimes.

His thoughts were interrupted by Virginia, standing in the doorway. She was holding a metal bucket.

"You shouldn't be here," he told her.

"No," she said, "I've been thinking about what Wolf said about how what we're looking for is trying to make sure it doesn't get looked at. And I think I can save us a lot of time."

"How?"

"When I had to run out of the room the other day," she began, "Where was I standing?"

He looked around, then pointed to where she had been, by the side of a map cabinet. It wasn't a place he'd marked with the string as of yet. He planned on getting to that later. She nodded.

"What's the bucket for?" he asked her.

"Exactly what you think it's for," she replied.

"Oh, no. You are _not_ going to work in here."

"It won't take long. And if I'm right, this might even pinpoint what we're looking for."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I felt bad all week, but it was never so bad that I couldn't get up and go out for a breather," she explained. "It did get worse, but all I needed was more frequent breathers. Until Tuesday. It came on very suddenly. I've thought about it, and I think it might have something to do with the forget spell." 

"That doesn't make any sense. How do you know you just didn't happen to get sick then?"

"Well, I don't. But if that's the case, I should be fine today in that same spot. I feel okay now - a little queasy from the smell, I guess, but not bad. It shouldn't hit me just walking across the room when I haven't been working in here at all. But if it does affect me, then that's a good sign it's the place, right? I mean, what better way to make sure I don't look there."

"Virginia . . ."

"Look, Dad," she said, "I want to do this. Just if it happens, make sure you search the spot. I _don't_ want to go through it for nothing."

Reluctantly, he agreed, deciding that the sooner she got it over with, the better, before she spent so long a time in the room that she really got sick again. She walked over to the designated area and took a deep breath. Tony didn't expect anything to happen, so he was doubly surprised when her face drained of color and she set the bucket down to vomit into it violently. He waited a couple of moments until he was sure she'd emptied her stomach, then grabbed her and rushed her out of the room - all the way outside. She was shaking as he set her down.

"Virginia, are you sure that doctor said you were all right?" he demanded. "Or do you think this could be some reaction you're having to the baby being half werewolf?"

She looked at him coldly.

"It's a reaction to the forget spell, like I told you," she stated. "Please don't make my having to go through that a worthless gesture!"

"You want me to go look there," he said.

She nodded.

"You know, according to Wolf's plan, I won't get to that part of the room for a couple of months. Looking at the stuff out of order is just going to hold us up more."

"Dad, that's all the more reason to look at it now! Don't you see? If the stuff doesn't want to get found, it stands to reason that it'll make sure it's the last thing you look at?"

He sighed.

"You know," she went on, "You're resisting this idea, just like Wendell and Rupert resisted you going in the records room until you fooled them about it - and just like Wolf was resisting the idea of me helping you."

"I am not."

"So will you look there?"

"You're the stubborn one, you know that?"

"No, Dad, I don't have to be stubborn. It doesn't have to use my stubbornness against me. All it has to do is use my screwed up sense of smell to make me puke. So will you look there?"

"Where you puked?"

She smiled.

"Yes."

"Are you okay now?"

"Yeah, now I'm fine. I'm not even queasy."

"You shouldn't have done that, you know."

"Well, it's too late. I did. So will you look there?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll look there."

* * *

He almost didn't. By the time he returned to the records room, he was thinking only of continuing with Wolf's plan, but the incongruous sight of the iron bucket tugged at his memory. _X marks the spot_, he thought. He walked over to it and then he remembered what Virginia had asked him to do. He glanced around. _Well, that does make it repulsive_, he thought. _But that's what it's supposed to do, I guess. So where's the most repulsive place to look? Directly under the bucket!_ It was sitting on top of some leather-bound tome the size of an old-time ledger, its cover crumbling with age. Daintily, he picked up the bucket by its bail handle and set it aside. He considered taking it to the far side of the room, but realized just in time that he'd probably forget to come back if he gave into that desire. So, keeping his eye on the old journal, he set the bucket as far away as he could without actually moving. Then he knelt and opened the book. 

The entries were hand-written, as was everything else in the room. But Tony couldn't read them; they were written in German. It took him a moment to figure that out, with the old fashioned script letters, but that's what it was. He'd found Grimm's notes, or at least the notes of some German-speaking person who had visited the Fourth Kingdom, he decided. Happily, he picked up the whole thing so he could carry it to another room for examination (away from the bucket). To his surprise, beneath it, laminated to the floor with age and pressure, lay the crusty remnants of an aged fragment of brown paper, a few of the sepia letters on it - not in German - still legible:

_...hill...world of old_  
_...story...untold._

_A kingdom...thrived_  
_...barren_

_Basquel Queen... _  
_...end...love's great pain_

_...one last spell_

_...my heart..._  
_...kingdom fell ..._

_...hand...his life_  
_...she was..._

_...must...peace_  
_Ere..._

* * *

Virginia had gone to sit outside for some fresh air. Though she no longer felt at all nauseous, she was still a bit shaky and weak. What in the world had possessed her to offer herself as such a guinea pig, she wondered, although she knew why, really: She just hadn't believed it would really happen. But now she felt a bit guilty, as if she had deliberately jeopardized her baby's health for the sake of getting around some ridiculous magic spell that had probably kept right on working anyway. Her father had, in all likelihood, probably forgotten about it as soon as she'd left, she thought, if not before, so that what she'd just gone through had all been pointless. It made her want to scream with frustration, but she merely sighed and stared at a fountain playing in the distance. 

She got so lost in her own dismal thoughts that she didn't hear Rupert coming.

"Ah!" he said, "There you are! I just wanted to let you know we received the reply from Wolf's sister - the one who is the bard - and she has agreed to be your maid of honor."

Privately, Virginia wondered how Rupert had managed to discover this information before either she or Wolf had heard about it, but all she said was "That's nice."

"Very good," he continued, "And now as far as the processional music goes, what do you think of . . ."

"Whatever you like, Rupert," she interrupted him. "I told you to just take care of the whole thing."

"Yes," he agreed. "Except for your dress. How is that coming along, by the way?"

"I'll get around to it."

"The wedding is a week from tomorrow, Virginia! You can't let these things go that long! It takes time to do the fittings!"

"Rupert, I'm going shopping in New York. I can just go and buy one off the rack. It doesn't have to be hand-sewn."

"But . . ."

"I'll go . . . soon. I will," she promised. "Just please take care of the rest of it yourself. I really am not interested in the details."

He gave her an odd look as he walked away, like he had every time she'd said something like that about not being interested in planning her own wedding. She supposed she was very different from other women in that way; she'd even known many whose whole lives seemed to revolve around their wedding plans, though she'd always thought that was a bit sad. What did they have to look forward to when the wedding was over, she'd always wondered?

That thought reminded her again about the baby. What was she, Virginia, going to do with one? She didn't know anything about babies, she'd been no more interested in them than she had been in planning a wedding. When everyone else was fussing and cooing over someone's baby, Virginia had always stayed carefully in the background so she wouldn't feel obligated to hold it. She thought of them as noisy, smelly, sticky things, full of drool and snot, and apt to spit up. But her near-miscarriage had taught her that she couldn't go back to the way she used to be. The fear of loss had torn something deep inside her that even now hurt to think about. She felt as if she were in some impossible catch-22 situation - at one end, not wanting a baby in the least, and at the other not being able to bear not having one. Not that she had much choice in the matter now. She wouldn't stay pregnant forever. _Early June,_ she thought again, as she had, over and over since the doctor had told her the due date. This time next year she'd have a four month old baby. She just couldn't imagine it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of her father rushing towards her, shouting, "Virginia! Virginia! You won't believe what I found! Look at this!"

He was carrying one of those enormous ledger-type antique binders that the records room had been full of - the kind in which you'd imagine Scrooge kept his books. He shoved it in her face. She drew back quickly and pushed it away.

"Dad, the smell . . ."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," he said. "But you gotta see, it's in _German!_ And that's not all - here . . ."

He dumped the ledger on the ground in blatant disregard of its dilapidated state and fished in his shirt pocket for a piece of paper, which he quickly unfolded and handed to her.

"This was under this book," he explained. "I mean, the original was under it. I just copied what I could make out."

He explained in what condition the original had been.

"And it did smell," he acknowledged. "I noticed that when I moved the ledger. It smelled like something died. That was probably what made you sick."

"Uh huh," she said, reading what he had written. "Dad, are you sure this is something that goes with that?" She indicated the ledger.

"Well, no," he admitted. "But it was under it and it's old and seems to be part of a poem - it looked like it was in stanzas, at least - so I thought it might be important."

"Because it's in English," she continued. "We were looking for something written by Grimm, which would be in German, like that journal or ledger or whatever it is - shouldn't you be more careful with that? - but what would a poem written in English have to do with his stay here?"

"I don't know," he said, "Maybe it was something he was collecting as part of his notes? And maybe it has nothing at all to do with him. I thought maybe we could sound Wendell out about this 'Basquel Queen' it's talking about, although we might have to drag him to New York to get anything out of him."

A movement caught her eye and Virginia looked up to see Wolf walking towards them.

"Virginia!" he exclaimed. "I just remembered - wasn't there something we were supposed to be looking for? I'm not sure exactly what, but . . ."

Her dad held up the crumbling leather-bound tome.

"You mean you remember it now?" he asked, astonished.

Wolf looked questioningly at him and they quickly explained what everyone but them had forgotten, and how the forget spell had worked directly on the item they'd been looking for so that even they had a hard time finding it. He agreed that finding the journal must have broken the spell, but when he discovered what Virginia had done to locate it, he was horrified.

"You did that on_ purpose?!!_" he cried.

She looked away and swallowed, then replied rather sharply, "Yeah, well, I didn't really believe it would work, okay?"

She didn't really want to hear a lecture from him though she felt she probably deserved it.

Her father shoved the notes he'd made from the obscure poem he'd found under the book at Wolf, effectively distracting him from further comments about her health, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"You have any idea what any of this means?" he asked, explaining where he'd gotten it.

Wolf studied it for a few moments.

"No," he finally said. "But I'll bet Wendell does."

Wendell, too, had been overwhelmed with a sense of urgency about something whose nature he couldn't quite recall. He was therefore deeply satisfied when Antony had walked into the council chamber bearing the journal written in a strange language of his own world. _That_ was what they were supposed to be looking for, he thought. Once he had seen it, it had all come back.

He'd proposed that they begin translating it at once, but had been a bit disappointed to discover that neither Antony nor Virginia spoke any German. Reluctantly, he'd just decided that they'd simply have to import someone from their world, since he was disinclined to allow the artifact to leave his palace, when Antony suggested using the mice.

"The ones that translated that carved inscription for you?" he asked, glad he'd seen the play of their adventure. As difficult as it had been to watch himself be a dog - and watch his body inhabited by one - he'd learned quite a bit from seeing everything else it showed.

"Yes! I'll go and get them," his former manservant volunteered, then hesitated as he dug some paper out of his shirt pocket. "I almost forgot. Here. See what you can make of this."

He tossed it on the table. Wendell unfolded the paper and read what it said as Virginia told him where it had been found.

"We thought 'Basquel Queen' might mean something to you," she said. "Does it?"

He nodded.

"Yes," he said. "The Basquel were supposed to be a race of forest sprites, related to the elves and fairies, only wingless. According to legend, they ranged throughout the northern forests, all the way north to what is now the Eighth Kingdom. But either they've all died out or they never really existed in the first place."

"The dryads?" asked Wolf.

"Yes!" Wendell exclaimed. "Dryads. I couldn't recall the name. But that's it."

"So dryads aren't real," said Virginia, almost to herself. Wendell thought she sounded vaguely disappointed.

"Well, they might have been," he reminded her.

"What happened to them, then?" she asked. "Or, at least, what was supposed to have happened to them?"

"I . . . don't know," he admitted. "I don't think I ever heard. Odd, isn't it?"

"It's part of the forget spell," offered Wolf.

"I thought we'd decided it was broken."

"Breaking it wouldn't help you remember something you never learned in the first place," the half-wolf explained. "If the spell has existed through several generations - and it looks like it has - whatever did happen has been forgotten permanently." He looked unusually pensive, Wendell thought.

"Was there anything else?" he asked.

Wolf shook his head, hesitated a moment, and then said, "There's an old ruin in the Second Kingdom. Up north - I can't remember exactly where right now - but it's rumored to be the dryad royal palace."

Wendell perked up. So did Virginia, he noticed.

"How much is left of this ruin?" he asked.

"Yes," seconded Virginia, "Do you think there might be anything left there that could help us?"

"I think it's still partly intact," ventured Wolf. "But I don't know - it's supposed to be cursed."

"Oh, dear," said Wendell.

"Cursed how?" she asked.

"I don't think I ever heard," Wolf replied. "Maybe no one has. Everyone just stays away from it."

"Maybe it's not really cursed, then," she suggested. "Maybe that's just something else like the forget spell was - to keep people away."

"I don't think so," he told her. "A simple curse would be much easier to do. That forget spell was very complicated - it took a very powerful wizard or witch both to cast it and to make it last so long. We were just fortunate that whoever did it forgot to include Virginia's dimension. But even for someone very powerful, it's easier to just do a curse. That way even if the forget spell was broken, the curse would still be in effect. And it would be a very potent curse, too, with that kind of force behind it."

Wendell was staring at Wolf in amazement.

"How do you know all this?" he asked.

Wolf looked away.

"I . . . uh . . . learned it in school," he replied.

"You mean _you_ didn't?" Virginia asked Wendell. It wasn't the first time Wolf had gone on about magic and its workings to her. He'd done it almost from the day she met him. But she'd assumed, from his remarks, that such knowledge was commonly taught in the Nine Kingdoms' schools. Yet, if the king of the Fourth Kingdom hadn't learned it . . .

"To be honest," the king replied sheepishly, "I was never interested in magic at all. I don't think I would have been in any case, and with my stepmother . . . I'm sorry Virginia . . . I . . . well, I'm afraid I hated it. Oh, I know what to stay away from, I think - like not to swallow a dragon dung bean or put a whisper cockle under my pillow - but I suppose I didn't pay any attention to anything more complicated than that." He looked at Wolf. "So I guess you are the resident expert, at least as far as it goes," he announced. "From what you were saying, should I conclude that this wizard or witch was a more powerful one than . . ."

"Yes, probably so," agreed Wolf. "Since Snow White's stepmother - and that was who we were dealing with, not Virginia's mother, Christine, from what I can figure out - just used several mirrors already in existence to enhance her ability."

"But you told me you knew the witch was my mother," cried Virginia.

He had explained to her then how the witch both was and was not her mother: The old Queen, her body useless, had needed someone she could easily control who had the inherent magical potential. Her mother, mentally disturbed and at the time dependent on prescription drugs, fit the requirements. She hadn't been exactly possessed in the demonic sense, but she had quite literally given her will completely away. Wolf hadn't explained it to her at the time - and she wasn't sure she could have listened even if he had - because he hadn't known enough about the person who had been Christine Lewis. But it made sense, Virginia thought. In her mother's final moments, she'd seemed suddenly to be free, as she had intermittently from the time Virginia had confronted her.

But this brought up another problem. Unlike her mother, the old Queen was not dead. She still lay in her undead state in the cellar of the house in the swamp, for all they knew. Wendell had done nothing to get rid of her. He'd said he doubted there was anything he could do that her magic couldn't counteract, and Virginia had to admit he was probably right about that. But it was also true, they agreed, that she might be looking for a new minion - another easily led woman of power. Virginia had shivered at the thought which sprang to her mind - how alike her mother and grandmother seemed to be: Each lived in their own little world of fantasy, and while her mother had been dependent on drugs, her grandmother spent her days and nights high on expensive wine. And now she was really all alone as well.

Virginia had felt guilty for some time for not going to see her grandmother after she returned from her adventure to let her know where she was and that she was all right. She simply had no idea how to tell the old woman what had happened to her daughter without giving away where she had been and what all was involved. Nor did she have any idea how to explain her relationship with the man who had apparently tried to cook her. But after a long discussion about the old queen's hold on her mother and the danger of that happening again with someone else, they had all come to the conclusion that it was safer in the long run for Christine's mother to be where they could keep an eye on her. And that meant bringing her to the Nine Kingdoms.

So here Virginia was, standing once again outside her grandmother's Gramercy Park apartment, preparing to go in and invite Grandma to the wedding. She had a little consolation prize to offer, since she knew the old woman would be a bit insulted at being left out of the planning stage: Virginia intended to suggest they go shopping for her wedding dress together. That would effectively take away all Virginia's choice in the matter, she knew, but she reasoned that she had never been much interested in such details anyway, so it really didn't matter. The hard part was going to be explaining what had happened to her mother, and following that, explaining about Wolf.

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. _Just knock,_ she told herself. _The sooner you start, the sooner it'll be over with._

She knocked, waited a moment, and then used her key as she always had before.

"Grandma?" she called. "It's me, Virginia."

She waited for the usual reply of 'Oh, for a moment there I thought it was your mother . . .', but when she found her grandmother in the sitting room, this time she said instead, "Oh, for a while there I thought you'd gone off to wherever it was your mother disappeared."

The opening was too great for Virginia to resist.

"Well," she replied, "I . . . kinda did."

As she'd half expected, the old woman perked up at the words, but her face held such hope that Virginia was loathe to dash it. Her expression, however, evidently gave the news away. In the next moment, her grandmother's face fell and she looked away, blinking and licking her lips.

"It's not good news, is it?" she asked quietly.

"No."

The older woman tossed aside the _Times_ crossword in her lap, and strode to her liquor cabinet.

"I know it's still a bit early, but I believe this can be called a reasonable cause."

She poured herself not wine this time, but whiskey, then held the bottle up and looked over her shoulder at her granddaughter.

"Oh, no thank you," Virginia told her.

Grandma shrugged and returned to her seat.

"So tell me what happened," she said.

"It's a long story," Virginia warned her.

The old woman's plucked eyebrow rose with irony.

"I believe I have time," she said haughtily.

Before leaving the penthouse she shared with Wolf, they'd several times gone over what Virginia could reasonably say. She was a terrible liar, but there were several smaller truths, none of which was terribly important in itself, that could safely be bent even by Virginia to make coherent an altered version of the story. With no other way open to her except a revelation of the complete truth, Virginia plunged into their made-up tale.

The dog she'd had with her that last night had been her mother's dog, she said. He'd gotten away from the man who was bringing it to her - the man that had attacked them in the apartment. At the mention of Wolf, her grandmother had at first been alarmed, then suspicious.

"He might have had something to do with her death, you know," she declared.

"No, Grandma, he didn't," she replied truthfully. "In fact, he's not like that at all. He's a friend of King Wendell's that was sent to bring us the news."

"Well, he certainly had an odd way of doing it," snapped the older woman sarcastically. Then, as the rest of the sentence sank in as Virginia had hoped it would, she added, "King who?"

"King Wendell," repeated Virginia. "He's the king of the small country mom disappeared to."

"What country is it? And what was your mother doing there that a friend of the king was sent to notify us of . . . about her?"

It took a bit of coaxing, but Virginia was finally able to convince her grandmother that only Wolf could properly explain the full account of her mother's disappearance. Even then, the old woman could not be persuaded to meet with him in _his_ apartment - though the address clearly impressed her - until Virginia informed her that they were engaged.

"To_that?_" she cried. "I'm sorry, Virginia, I realize he fits the economic version of suitable which I held up for you, but regardless of how well he is connected socially, a man who behaves in that fashion at all is not acceptable."

"He can explain it, Grandma."

"No doubt," was the curt reply. "That's what they all say."

"Please give him a chance," Virginia begged. "At least come hear what he has to say."

Her grandmother sighed.

"Very well, I'll meet him," she agreed. "But only in the interest of hearing what he has to say about your mother. Hopefully, you'll come to your senses before it's too late, like it was for her. When is this wedding, by the way?"

Virginia bit her lip.

"Saturday."

"_THIS_ Saturday?!"

"Yes."

"Why so soon?" Grandma demanded. "Tell me you're not pregnant."

Virginia was silent. She hadn't anticipated having to say anything to her grandmother about the baby just yet, but she couldn't lie to her about it.

"Oh, God," the old woman groaned. "Virginia, you know you don't have to go through with this. In my day a woman wouldn't have had any choice, but now it's perfectly acceptable to simply get rid of it."

"I don't want to get_ rid_ of it," Virginia told her, a bit more sharply than she'd intended.

Her grandmother sighed.

"All right," she said. "But I know you're going to regret it." - Then, probably realizing how what she said had sounded, added, "The marriage, I mean."

Finally, she noticed the ring.

"With his money you think he could at least have gotten you diamonds," she spat. "This just shows how unenthusiastic he probably is about the whole thing. Snaring a man into matrimony is one thing, Virginia. Making him feel trapped is quite another."

Virginia saw the ring's little eyes grow wide with indignation. Her grandmother's analysis of Wolf's feelings about the wedding was already so far from reality that Virginia'd had to fight to keep from smiling, which Grandma would have considered impertinent, given what she was saying. So she had to put her hand to her mouth and bite down on it as the ring sweetly sang,

_Your grandma there is quite a lush;  
Why don't you tell her just to hush?  
Why does she have to come at all?  
She'd do naught but spoil that ball.  
She's so sauced she can't see straight -  
She'll be passed out at this rate._

* * *

Nevertheless, her grandmother had been charmed by Wolf. He'd apologized profusely for his former behavior, explaining that he'd had a flashback of malaria he'd picked up from a former campaign in the tropics, and must have been delirious. He had no memory of his behavior that day, he said, but Virginia had assured him it was execrable. Could her grandmother ever forgive him? Upon hearing his explanation, Grandma had looked straight at her and said, "Why didn't you tell me that was what happened, Virginia?" 

For once in her life, Virginia didn't hear the disapproving, slightly condescending tone in the older woman's voice. All she thought was: _He's got her. Thank God._

Wolf had gone on to tell her a modified story of her daughter's history - carefully leaving out all mention of wrongdoing, except for one. While he didn't avoid mentioning that Christine had married the king - Wendell's father - he was quick to point out that they hadn't known at the time that she was still married to Tony.

Virginia watched, amused, as her grandmother's eyes changed from dreamy and glazed one minute - as she dreamed of Christine in a crown - to shifty the next as she tried to think up some reasonable justification for her daughter's bigamy.

"Well, you know, they weren't _really_ married," she ventured. "Christine and Tony. They hadn't been for years, at least not in the . . . um . . . conjugal sense. She'd always _intended_ to get a divorce . . ."

He left the location of the kingdom a mystery, however, telling her it was a surprise he was reserving for the wedding. Virginia knew that made her grandmother a bit suspicious, but in view of the obvious wealth surrounding her, she said nothing about it even later when they were shopping together, though she did try to induce her granddaughter to tell her the wedding's location. But beyond informing the older woman that the climate was much like New York's (Grandma had claimed she wouldn't know what to wear if she didn't know where she was going), Virginia managed to avoid having to answer her.

* * *

At that moment, far away in the royal palace of the Second Kingdom, Queen Riding Hood III was contemplating the invitation she'd received. For a brief while, she wondered idly why she hadn't thrown it out as soon as she'd received it, but a quick perusal of its contents reminded her that she'd not only been invited to an event she found repugnant, she had been insulted into the bargain. 

The invitation was to the wedding of King Wendell's step-sister (_now_ he was claiming that line as family, she noted sarcastically. How interesting). But the event in itself was reasonable enough - the girl was a hero of the Kingdoms and as such was entitled to a wedding of that scale if she wished one. Queen Riding Hood III had no quarrel with that. What she found thoroughly disgusting was that the poor misguided thing intended to marry a wolf!

The excuse for this abominable pairing was that the wolf was also supposedly a great hero. Riding Hood had discovered shortly after Wendell's coronation (what a fiasco that had turned out to be!) that Wendell intended to declare the wolf as such and had promptly boycotted the awards ceremony. When she discovered later what the wolf's prize for this world-saving had been, she had been very glad she hadn't still been present - and she had also felt quite vindicated in the knowledge that the wolf in question had obviously not undertaken the quest for altruistic reasons. If she were to dangle such a thing as that pardon in front of her own wolf population, she had no doubt that they would all appear quite the heroes until they had the thing in their hands or until the next full moon, whichever came first. Then the land would descend into a bloody anarchy.

Still, the heroine Virginia was an adult, and if she wished to practice beastiality - Riding Hood shuddered, trying not to imagine what disgusting form such a pairing would take - that was her own business. She wasn't a subject of Riding Hood's after all.

No, what really irked her was that the invitation specified that the wedding guests were required to arrive in costume, as for a masked ball. This was obviously a method for allowing the wolf guests to remain anonymous, and since, thanks to the pardon, that certainly wasn't necessary any longer in Wendell's kingdom, Riding Hood knew it had to be meant as a slight to _her._

_How dare he!_ she thought indignantly._ This must be Wendell's method of getting back at me for missing his award ceremony (and approving a dog in his place, _she acknowledged with a slight twinge of guilt, quickly overcome).

_He couldn't possibly expect me to really show up for this,_ she decided. _Which is why I really should. But I can't wait any longer to return the invitation! As it is, I'll need to send it by magic missive. The question is how can I turn this to my advantage?_

Suddenly an idea came to her: She might in fact be able to accomplish exactly what they were trying, by their insult to her, to avoid. If she were to go, even if she managed to recognize only one of the wolfs as one of her subjects, she could treat it as an example upon its return. That should send a clear message to Wendell, she thought! And it would be especially satisfying if that wolf happened to be a member of the wedding party!

* * *

"Oh! exclaimed Grandma, "Oh, _do_ be _careful_ with that! It has to be folded _exactly_ so or it will wrinkle just _terribly!"_

Servants were such a lax lot, she thought. One always had to keep one's eye on them at all times. But, she reflected with a satisfied sigh, it did feel good to have them again! Virginia had sent three from her fiancé's household over to help her pack. Her late husband Jamieson, though a fine man and the catch of the season at her debut, had unfortunately been a bit of a gambler. She had been, well, distressed to discover upon his demise that he was so far in debt. Fortunately, her own father had insisted she maintain her personal fortune privately, so that although she was still required to settle Jamieson's accounts, enough remained to keep her from starving. Her standard of living, however, was so far below that to which she had always been accustomed that she felt quite poor. Several friends, with whom she'd always been quite close, had grown distant, which had hurt her though she understood why they'd felt it necessary. Fortunately there were a few to whom her sudden drop in status had made no difference. These were the ones to whom she would have introduced Virginia.

She sighed. Not that it was necessary now. Virginia had managed to find someone suitable on her own, even if she had used what her grandmother considered a dirty trick to get him. While getting yourself pregnant might work with some men, it was by no means an infallible method of inducing marriage. Still, she reflected, these days the consequences of failure in that area were minimal, especially in Virginia's case with the wedding being so soon. Even if her beau backed out at the last minute, she would still have plenty of time to abort the little mistake and start over again fresh - this time with an eligible New Yorker. Grandma frowned. There was just something she didn't quite trust about this Simon Wolf.

She'd tried to tell herself it was simply the leftover effect of their disastrous first meeting. Heaven knew she couldn't possibly think of a _worse_ first impression he could have made. But he had explained it reasonably enough - she believed she'd heard of that sort of thing happening to malaria victims before - and she had to admit her granddaughter was right about one thing: There was nothing about him now of the wild psychotic who had so terrified her. However, she thought wryly, neither was there anything of a gentleman of culture and refinement. Oh, his money was real enough - she could easily see that - but if they thought she believed that story they'd fed her about his royal connections, they had another think coming. _Really!_

No, Grandma suspected he was just one of the _nouveau_ rich whose daddy had made the money and who had done absolutely zilch himself except travel about 'doing the tour' as was once said. No doubt that was when he'd picked up malaria, not on any _campaign._ Not only was he obviously not a member of society, he was certainly no military man, either. In fact, if it hadn't been for his undeniable wealth - and Virginia's complete lack of it - she'd have pegged him as a fortune hunter. At least, from her apparent complicity in this string of white lies, Virginia seemed to know what he was really about. Grandma hoped she did. But then, she reflected, it was perfectly possible he had somehow convinced Virginia of the truth of what he'd told her and concocted some ostensibly plausible reason why her grandmother couldn't be told. Grandma just wondered how he - or they - were going to explain their little prevarications when the truth finally came out. It was going to be quite painful to watch them digress when that finally happened, but she'd try to make it as easy as possible for them - especially if it turned out that Virginia had been completely fooled, poor thing, and after getting herself pregnant, too.

Her thoughts were interrupted for a moment when Justine - was that her name? - asked her which trunk she'd like packed next. Grandma surveyed the three remaining steamer trunks (they'd packed six already) and selected one at random. It didn't really matter, but it was best not to let the help know there was _anything_ one didn't care about. It only encouraged them toward carelessness.

She heaved another sigh as she sat back on the divan and sipped her champagne. _Could there be anything as tiring as packing?_ she wondered. The trunks had been gathering dust in the basement for absolutely _years,_ and yet she'd had only two days in which to air them out. That wasn't at all sufficient, and she was absolutely certain her things would arrive full of some godawfully stale smell, but there was no hope for it. Virginia simply hadn't given her proper notice, and it wasn't as if she hadn't had the time. She'd said the baby was due at the beginning of June, which meant she'd had to have known about it for a couple of weeks now, if not more.

Grandma frowned. Her glass was empty. Quickly, she refilled it.

It was their story of what had happened to Christine that bothered her the most. Oh, not the part about her being a bigamist - Grandma didn't believe that for one minute, once she'd gotten over her initial shock. What really bothered her was the fact that, in all this time, her daughter had not contacted her. She'd convinced herself - despite what she'd always said to Virginia - that Christine must have died long ago, ending up as what the police call a 'Jane Doe' - an unidentifiable missing person. That was the only explanation that had made sense. But Virginia had claimed to have been at her funeral and seen her body, and this was something her grandmother did not believe the girl would lie about. Christine's death was quite recent - this she had to believe. Yet there was no way to reconcile this information with her daughter's silence. Surely she would at least have called, especially as she knew before she left that her mother was virtually penniless? (Since Grandma didn't doubt Christine had married wealth, either. Why else would someone as wealthy as Simon come bearing news of her demise?) Or was there come other way to explain it?

The answer hit her suddenly and she was quite glad she was already sitting down or she would have swooned with the shock: Christine had been kidnaped by Arabs and held prisoner in a harem! It all made sense now; everything did! Of course, that would explain how she was married to 'royalty' - no doubt it was some minor sheik whose harem she had graced. And after he had passed away, his heir had very likely poisoned her (that was what they did, wasn't it?)! And now Virginia was about to be ensnared as well! _Simon Wolf!_ There was a made-up name if Grandma had ever heard one! He did look somewhat Arabic, she thought, with that straight black hair and that perpetual five-o'clock shadow. But he was too tall and too fair - olive skinned though he was - to be entirely of that blood. _Unless,_ she thought, _unless his mother had also been kidnaped from this country!__Yes! That would also explain why his English is so fluent that he has no accent at all!_ No doubt he offered to come just so he could begin - or add to, she amended fearfully - his own harem. And now her granddaughter was pregnant by him! _Oh my God!_ she thought, _She told me he was more excited about the baby than she was! Now I know why! Oh this is terrible! I've got to save her!_

_Everyone_ knew Arabs considered women to be nothing more than baby-making machines, she thought. If that child is a boy, that Simon will hold it over her head to keep her in line, and she'll never get away from him - not without losing her baby. _But how can I get her to understand what a terrible mistake she's making?_

A rapid knock at the door was quickly followed by the sound of the latch being turned.

"Grandma?" she heard Virginia's voice call.

"In here, darling," she called back, hoping the girl had managed to come by herself. But, as she had expected, Simon accompanied her (it was almost as if the two had grown together, she thought vulgarly. Didn't they go anywhere separately?). He smiled at Grandma in a way that reminded her of some predatory animal, the points of his teeth showing.

_Now, Helen, don't be that uncharitable,_ she told herself._ By his own standards he's doing nothing wrong, and you'll only lose Virginia entirely if you begin by hurling insults at him. Besides, you'd probably never think that if it hadn't been for the way you'd met him - and that was certainly not his fault._

"Oh, you're still packing," her granddaughter observed.

"Yes," she replied. "These things do take time. If you want them done properly, that is. Champagne?"

Virginia and Simon both declined.

"I guess Murray could start loading the ones you have packed already in the van . . ."

"Well, if you insist," Grandma told her. "But we still have a bit to go yet, and I'd probably feel better if my things weren't sitting out on the street for that long. You never know what might happen. They could just disappear into thin air."

"Okay," replied Virginia congenially. She started to sit down.

"Virginia," said her grandmother. "Could I speak to you a moment? Privately?"

They retreated to the kitchen and Grandma closed the door, after first satisfying herself that Simon was still safely in the drawing room.

"I wanted to talk to you about this marriage," she began, though she almost immediately realized it had been the wrong way to open the conversation.

"Grandma . . ." replied Virginia in a tone of voice that clearly announced she had no intention of listening. As if to emphasize this fact, she looked studiously away.

"I figured out what happened to your mother," she said quickly, hoping for a reaction.

She got one.

"What do you mean?" her granddaughter inquired sharply.

"She was poisoned, wasn't she?"

Virginia's face went white, but she remained silent.

"I knew it!" cried Grandma. "I knew it! Virginia, you can't mean you really want that kind of life for yourself! Your mother didn't have any choice, but you still do! Call the wedding off before it's too late!"

Though she remained pale, Virginia's face assumed a look of confusion. After a moment, she said, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about being in a harem!" her grandmother spat. Did she have to spell everything out, she wondered? "That Simon may not have any other wives yet, but that doesn't mean you'll be his one and only forever!"

Virginia's eyes widened incredulously and she burst out laughing.

"A harem?" she gasped.

Grandma was quite taken aback. Surely that was what had happened to Christine - it was the only explanation that made sense; that took everything into account. Did Virginia simply believe it could never happen to her?

"Just because your Simon is only half-Arab by blood doesn't mean that he wasn't raised with their value system," she pontificated.

Virginia choked.

"Wolf . . . Simon isn't an Arab!" she declared. "No one is! No one that has anything to do with us, anyway."

The glass doorknob turned and the door edged open just enough for someone to look through. Grandma stiffened.

"Virginia?" Simon's voice called. Her granddaughter replied and he continued, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she assured him.

He threw the door open wide. At the sight of Grandma, he smiled a bit sheepishly.

_At least he has the grace to realize he's interrupting a private conversation_, she thought sarcastically.

But he didn't even apologize, she noted. He just returned his attention to Virginia and asked, "What's an Arab?"

Something inside Grandma snapped.

"You know perfectly well what an Arab is!" she declared. "Don't play the innocent with me! You may have pulled the wool over my granddaughter's eyes, but my vision is crystal clear! You may not be kidnapping her like Christine, but you can't tell me you aren't planning to make Virginia a member of your harem!"

She might have saved her breath, for her anger simply washed right over him. He stared at her brightly (for some reason the phrase 'all bright eyed and bushy tailed' came to her mind), smiled and asked, "What's a harem?"

"I'll explain it to you later," Virginia told him.

Exasperated, Grandma rounded on her granddaughter.

"Virginia. You can't tell me Christine wasn't poisoned to death. I saw your face when I suggested it."

Virginia's face paled again as it had the first time Grandma had mentioned it. Simon put his arm around her, suddenly serious himself.

"You see?" said Grandma triumphantly.

He glanced furtively at her, then said something in a low voice to Virginia, who nodded, but still looked as if she were a bit ill. He nodded too, and Grandma thought, for just a moment, that she could see how Virginia could have been blinded by love for this man. He seemed to know exactly what to do in a difficult emotional situation, which was something that most men - in her experience - did not.

Then he looked up at her, and his eyes seemed to stare a hole through to the back of her skull. She didn't remember what happened next very clearly, but she did recall thinking that she shouldn't have drunk quite so much champagne - not because it made her dizzy, but because she became far too suggestible.

He had asked her what she thought had happened, and when she told him, he'd denied it all, saying that everything would be explained as soon as they got to his country (he didn't use the words 'my country', saying instead 'my land' but it amounted to the same thing, she thought). _And she had agreed to it!_ It was only now, as she watched the last of her trunks disappear on a hand truck into the depths of Central Park that she was beginning to regain her senses.

"Wait!" she cried. "What's going on? Where are they taking my things?"

She hadn't at all recognized the men who had wheeled her things away so abruptly.

"It's okay Grandma," Virginia assured her. "Those are just King Wendell's servants. He sent them here to help us with this."

"Well they just took my trunks right into the park, Virginia!" she insisted. "Did you see that?"

"Yes," her granddaughter replied. "Now come on!"

She felt her hand being taken, and her feet followed as Virginia propelled her further into the trees in the same direction her trunks had taken. She didn't see the furtive look her granddaughter gave her fiancé, nor his answering shrug.

_At least we might be able to recover one or two of them,_ her addled mind rationalized. But she was disappointed when they came to a halt near a thicket of trees with no one else in sight.

"This is it," Virginia announced.

"What is?" she wanted to know.

"It's the portal," her granddaughter explained. "The entrance to Wolf's . . . to Simon's world."

_Have they lost their minds?_ wondered Grandma. _Or have I lost mine? Maybe this is a dream and I'll wake up soon._

"I'll go first," Simon offered, and promptly disappeared.

Grandma looked around, surprised and confused, but not worried. Strange things always happened in dreams.

"Are you ready, Grandmother?" Virginia asked her.

"I suppose so."

"Just step through there, then."

Virginia pointed to a patch of what Grandma had to admit was rather blurry greenery. She'd thought it was her old eyes playing tricks on her, however.

"Go on," her granddaughter encouraged her. "I'm right behind you."

Grandma took a step forward, putting her hand out in front of her. It disappeared into nothingness. She tried to jerk it away, but couldn't. It was as if something or someone had hold of her hand and was pulling her towards it. She started to scream just as she passed the threshold.

Grandma stumbled out into a rather dark, cold place that smelled of mildew. It took her a moment to regain her balance, and she noticed then that Simon was holding her by the hand.

"It does make you dizzy," he admitted. Then, seeing that she was fine (at least physically), he let her go.

She looked around, overwhelmed and more than a trifle dismayed by the sight of the oil lanterns hung against the damp dressed stone, and the iron bars separating the room she was in from the narrow corridor.

"Where are we?" she asked, feeling like a character in a gothic novel. _Well, at least I didn't say 'Where am I?'_ she reflected.

"This is the dungeon of Wendell's - King Wendell's - castle," he explained.

"_Dungeon?!"_

"It's the safest place to keep the mirrors," he told her, pointing to the space behind her.

She turned around. There, secured in place by a sturdy rack, stood a full-length rectangular mirror with an ornate frame carved with scrolls and concentric circles. But at the moment it wasn't the frame which caught her attention, but what was shown in the glass: instead of a reverse image of the room she was in, it depicted an ever-shifting view of New York, as seen from Central Park. Yet she barely had time for this to register before the image clouded over and her granddaughter emerged bodily into the room.

Virginia eyed her a bit sheepishly, then did something with the mirror's frame. The image of New York vanished, replaced by what should have been there in the first place - a reflection of their present surroundings.

"It's a magic mirror," her granddaughter told her. "This is why we couldn't tell you where the wedding was. You'd never have believed us."

Grandma had badly wanted to retort, 'Well how do you know, you didn't even try?' but the words sounded ridiculous even to her. So for once she was silent.

But when they had gone upstairs and entered the main hall, her eyes lit up and she froze in wonder.

"This is where your mother . . ." she managed to get out, then took a deep breath and began afresh, "I mean, _this_ was Christine's castle?"

"I guess you could say that," acknowledged Simon, "It certainly was for awhile."

She whirled around, staring up at the high, painted ceiling like a child.

_I always knew she was meant to be a princess,_ she thought, then amended that to: _No, a queen!_

They took her up to her chambers, and Simon at last left Virginia and her alone.

"Okay," said her granddaughter. "I said I'd explain things when we got her so here goes . . ."

And she launched into a mixed-up tale full of magic and adventure, the gist of what ended up being that the dog she'd found was actually the king, who had been turned into a dog by an evil spell, and that she (Virginia) and her father (that dolt!) had been brought here by accident, and had essentially had to help break the spell on the king in order to get back. This was sprinkled through with a lot of nonsense about Snow White and Cinderella so that Grandma didn't wonder that Virginia thought she'd never believe it in New York. She didn't even believe it here!

Grandma did, however, notice that nowhere in this twisted tale did her own daughter appear, and she said as much. Whereupon Virginia, after much hemming and hawing, declared that her mother had been kidnaped by Snow White's stepmother! When pressed for clearer information, however, her granddaughter suddenly blew up.

"Never mind!" she said tersely. "You haven't believed anything else I've told you, so you certainly aren't going to believe that part either." Tears formed in her eyes. "I can't believe it - I mean, you came here through a magic mirror, why do you have to be so . . . so . . ."

The dam had burst then and she'd literally run from the room.

Grandma sighed, glad to be rid of her. Not that she'd have wished the girl to be miserable, but she was sure she must be dreaming. The real Virginia was probably sound asleep, curled up next to her rich Arab in that penthouse of his. She looked at the bed turned back for her here: it was exactly what she would have expected to see in a fairy-tale castle: a dark four-poster with heavy bedcurtains embroidered with gilt thread.

_It is getting late,_ she thought. _And I know I'll just wake up in that squalid apartment of mine in New York, probably alone, to discover that Virginia hasn't come back at all. But one can't live one's life in a dream world._

She changed into her nightgown and blew out the candles.

Grandma wasn't sure exactly what it was that awakened her, but when she opened her eyes, she found that the candles had all been lit again. She sat up, curiously, and looked around, nearly crying out when she saw the apparition seated by the now-crackling fireplace. It was wearing a long, deep violet gown under a forest green velvet cloak that matched perfectly its glittering eyes. Its long, thick red hair - still free of gray, Grandma noted - was piled loosely in a knot on top of its head. It looked regal, though it wore no crown.

"Hello, Mother," it said.

"Christine?" she breathed incredulously, "But you . . . you're . . ."

"Yes, I'm quite dead."

"But how . . . ?" she wanted to know. Oddly enough, Grandma didn't think she was dreaming now. The Christine sitting before her was a Christine she hadn't known, fourteen years older and a bit heavier than the one in her memory, though it was unmistakably still her daughter. If it had been a dream, surely she would have appeared as the younger woman her mother remembered, she thought.

"No, you're not dreaming," her daughter assured her, as if reading her thoughts. "Nor were you dreaming earlier this evening when Virginia was trying to explain everything to you. You upset her terribly, by the way. This is extremely difficult for her."

That was the last thing Grandma wanted to hear. How dare her daughter march in here and begin lecturing her, she thought, after disappearing like that without a word herself! She said as much. To her horror, Christine threw back her head and laughed.

"Oh, dear," her daughter exclaimed, still terribly amused, "I can see there are certain advantages to no longer being alive: None of that applies, you see. The filial relationship no longer exists. However, in the interest of clearing up a few things, I will explain some of it.

Virginia was partially correct in stating that I had been kidnapped by an evil witch. The word 'kidnapped,' though, implies that I was dragged away against my will, kicking and screaming, when in fact I came quite willingly. It would, however, be entirely within the truth to say I was lured. Without going into the details of why I made the choices I did - which would take me too far from the reason I am here - suffice to say that I allowed the witch to usurp my will. She used the Lethe mirror - one of those now locked in the dungeon here - to remove all memory of my past life. That is why I never contacted you. I no longer remembered. I was entirely the witch's pawn. She needed someone young who had the power, you see. And now that I am gone, she will be looking for another, as they well know."

"They?"

"King Wendell, Virginia, Wolf . . . and Tony."

Grandma frowned with distaste at the mention of her son-in-law's name, but in death her daughter ignored her scorn as she had never managed to do in life.

"They are afraid she may try and strike through you," Christine went on.

_Me?_

"But that is a groundless fear," she continued. "This is, as Virginia tried to tell you, Snow White's stepmother we are dealing with - the one who constantly asked her mirrors how fair she was. I was about to become too old for her myself - she would have discarded me at the first ready opportunity - so I'm afraid you're too old for her purposes, though you do have the power, as I did."

Grandma looked suspiciously at her daughter.

"That's sheer nonsense!" she declared in a tone that permitted no argument.

"No it isn't," argued Christine. "You remember what happened when you were little and you found the daddy long-legs . . . and how no one else could see what he really was . . . and what your father did to him?"

_It hadn't been a bug, she remembered. It had been a tiny being that glistened and sparkled with an inner light - delighted that someone could at last see him! Little Helen had taken him to show to her parents, and her mother had screamed. Her father had shouted something obscene - which her mother had later castigated him for - swatted him out of her hand and stepped on him._

_She'd cried for days and days afterwards, and her father had finally come with the switch and given her a lashing. He'd told her that if she didn't learn the difference between fantasy and reality that she'd get it again, too. The little man hadn't existed. It was just a nasty bug._

"You do remember," said her daughter. "Virginia has the ability too, though the witch knows better than to try and use her. With the wolf by her side, she is far too strong, and he is more powerful himself than she anticipated. Their child would be an easier prey."

Helen looked up. She'd been reliving the little man's death, and it took awhile for Christine's words to finally sink in.

"They will have enough to think about in the next few months," said Christine. "Something far older and stronger than she is awakening, though it will not hesitate to use her for its dark purposes. So it will be up to you to take care of this unfinished business. Her vanity is her weakness. You will know when the time comes."

Helen lay back down in the bed, her eyes wet with tears. The next morning, the candles were all out but not guttered, and the fireplace was cold. It was as if Christine had not been there at all. Yet she knew without a doubt that it had not been a dream.

* * *

"I'm going to kill Wendell," said Virginia for what she knew was probably the hundredth time. She meant it, though. There were more people going into the conservatory, where her wedding was about to be held, than there had been at his coronation. "I specifically told him I only wanted a few friends and family - a very small wedding - and _look_ at that!" 

The crowd reminded her uneasily of the dream she'd had during the last full moon. A thought suddenly occurred to her and she turned guiltily from the window she had been peering out of to look at Abby.

"You don't have an extremely large family that W . . . Simon forgot to tell me about, do you?" she asked.

The girl laughed.

"No," she replied. "I have no idea who they are, either. But if it's any consolation, they're probably not anyone you know. They're probably just the people royals are required to invite to any function they hold to avoid bruising egos."

Virginia stared at her dubiously.

"It's true," Abby insisted. "In some ways, it's NOT good to be the king."

Her father chose that moment to poke his head around the door and ask if she was ready.

Virginia stiffened.

"So soon?" she asked, her voice nearly failing. She felt suddenly lightheaded. Had she eaten enough? She hadn't been very hungry at all this morning. What if she passed out in front of all those people? Her feet felt suddenly chained to the floor while her stomach fluttered nervously.

"Are you okay?" Abby asked her. Receiving no answer, she suggested, "Look, why don't you just take it in small steps? We can just go downstairs. Can you do that?"

_Yes,_ she thought. She could do that. She nodded.

They made it out to the vestibule of the conservatory in this fashion, a little at a time. Abby managed to keep her talking, to give her mind something to think about besides the crowd waiting for her, though the wedding was what they discussed.

"Are you sure you don't want to wear a mask?" Virginia asked her again.

"No," she insisted. "You don't have one on and neither do Simon, King Wendell, or your father. I'd be the only one in the wedding party wearing one, and that in itself would seem suspicious. And it's not like Simon and I look so much alike - if I had Diedre's looks I'd probably take you up on it - so that people will automatically guess. I'm betting they think I'm an old friend of yours, or_your_ sister. In a way it will be rather a lot of fun for me to see who they think I am!"

The music abruptly changed from a light background accompaniment to the beginning of a processional. It wasn't the _Wedding March,_ but it was easy for Virginia to tell that it had the same purpose.

"Well, that's my cue," declared Abby. She shook each of her hands into the air, then wrapped them around her bouquet. Nearly set to go, she looked back at Virginia and paused. "Don't look at the audience," she told her. "Just look at Simon and don't take your eyes away."

Then she was gone.

Virginia felt her dad's arm lock around hers.

"You'll be fine," he whispered, and they started forward.

A sea of faces, all wearing masks, turned in unison to look at her. She felt her face go pale as her steps faltered and her hand tightened on her father's sleeve. Her legs felt suddenly boneless. Why hadn't she worn a veil, she wondered? At least then no one would be able to see her face. She was never going to be able to go through with this.

With great difficulty she forced herself to not turn and run. She couldn't do that to Wolf.

_Wolf,_ she thought, and remembered suddenly what Abby had told her. She looked ahead, down towards the end of the makeshift aisle. He was standing there wearing the same formal silk suit he'd had on at the awards ceremony and banquet. He was smiling at her.

Everything else went away, and she walked towards him as if she were in a dream, reminded suddenly of her nightmare in the swamp and how he had been running to get to her at the end of it. She'd awakened in his arms, shaking, and the shell around her heart had cracked open, a momentary pain that felt better than anything she'd ever imagined. She barely noticed when her father let her go and Wolf took his place at her side. Just like on that long-ago day, he was suddenly simply there.

* * *

Queen Riding Hood III sat in the back row of chairs they'd brought into the conservatory, terribly bored. She couldn't actively begin her plan until the reception, since everyone at the wedding itself was masked and quite subdued. For some reason it hadn't occurred to her how easily wolfs could blend in with humans, though she knew it should have - how else could some of them go unnoticed for so long in a village? It wasn't as if it were full moon. Wendell at least had known better than to schedule the event at that time of the month. She knew other royals besides herself had to be present - she could in fact easily recognize Leaf Fall by her wings and the dwarf king by his stature, despite their adherence to the rule requiring a mask, but was unable to distinguish the wolfs as being somehow different. Nor could she identify them by any tell-tale bulge on their hind ends where their tails were concealed: The men all had on long, formal coats, while the women were virtually all sporting bustles. And despite the camouflage it provided, this little fashion affectation was no giveaway: bustles had recently become all the rage and Riding Hood herself was sitting on one. It was, she thought, probably her only opportunity to take advantage of current fashion. 

She had, all her life, been required to wear nothing but riding clothes, and always red riding clothes. It was true that for formal occasions the clothes would be modified a bit to fit in, but they were riding clothes nonetheless. She'd been told it was a matter of tradition - that, as queen, she had an image to uphold. Further, because she was queen, she had a duty to be prepared at all times, and that was why, even if she was spending the day alone in her own rooms, seen by no one except her servants, that she was still required to dress befitting her title. After all, she might need to be seen riding at a moment's notice, she thought sourly. Riding Hood hated the tradition like she hated the color red, but she'd gone along with it anyway. Until now.

This masked wedding had given her the excuse she needed to break the mold, at least for one day. How could she attend a masked affair, she had argued (to her advisors, who had predictably been shocked), if she were instantly recognizable anyway in her red riding clothes? They, of course, had argued back that the queen of the Second Kingdom _HAD_ to be recognized, but she had overruled their objection. She was the queen, after all. And, now she sat here luxuriating in her form-hugging satin gown of rich peacock blue, with its long train of peacock feather panels streaming from the small bustle. She loved how she'd looked in it - how the color brought out the blue of her eyes - and had almost wished she could forget about the mask, but that would have ruined her plans entirely. At least the mask matched her outfit, sporting a male peacock's crest archly over one eye.

But the decorations hung in the lush conservatory merely depressed her. Not that they weren't well done - she suspected Lord Rupert had been behind them - but because she knew the decorations for her own upcoming wedding were bound to be . . . well . . . red. She would be lucky if she could avoid wearing a red gown to it, she thought, though perhaps she could talk her advisors into a white gown with some red accents. It would inevitably be suitable for riding, however. Of that she had no doubt.

Here, however, Rupert had taken full advantage of the fall season in his color scheme: Garlands of multicolored fall leaves, intertwined with ribbons strung with tiny bells and tied with wheat, hung from the iron framing. The glossy green of the orange trees, around which they were seated, provided a solid framework in which he had worked in minimal bursts of discrete color. Containers of cattails stood on both sides of the aisle near the vestibule, and the far end, where the couple would say their vows, had been adorned with several more of the wheat knots that were symbolic of fertility. It was quite appropriate for a wedding, she knew, but remembering who - or rather what - was getting married here, the idea simply made Riding Hood's gorge rise.

Abruptly, the music changed. A door at the far end opened, sending a breeze through the glass building. The little bells on the ribbon streamers tinkled. Two men, not masked, entered. One she recognized as King Wendell, tall, thin and blonde, his curly-haired head uncrowned for this occasion. With an uncomfortable start, she realized she recognized the other - the wolf - as well. He had been at the coronation, dressed in a servant's livery - the one who had served her that awful concoction which had made them all pass out. Not that she held that incident against him - since Wendell's stepmother had fully intended the stuff to be deadly poison. No, her discomfort came from the fact that she clearly remembered ogling him and thinking that maybe she could begin to understand a bit of what made some women of rank engage in a fling with a servant. Her face flushed, and for once she was truly glad of the mask. A deep shame washed over her, not for the thought she'd had about the wolf, but for the contempt she'd always secretly held for their victims. Although she'd never said so out loud, she'd always wondered how a girl could be so mindless as to let herself be victimized. After all, it wasn't as if they weren't informed of the consequences: Riding Hood herself had implemented a national campaign designed to educate the young people and their parents about the dangers of involvement with wolfs. There were public service announcements everywhere, education packets for schools and teachers, workshops, and more. But Riding Hood had never actually seen a wolf herself to know she was looking at one. She had no idea they could pass for human quite that easily. No wonder the poor girls had been led astray. Even now she found it hard to keep from staring at him; knowing beyond a doubt he was a wolf seemed to evoke an almost visceral reaction in her. When everyone turned to look at the bride, she had to force herself to tear her eyes away.

The single bridesmaid entered first, of course. She, also, was unmasked (apparently the wedding party felt no need for concealment, thought Riding Hood). She wore a long-sleeved deep violet dress with a scooped neckline, fitted waist and, of course, the obligatory bustle. Her long, thick brunette hair hung to her waist, braided in places with ribbons of violet, gold, and green, flecked with violets and tiny wild asters. Those flowers were echoed in her bouquet, a tumbling mass of violet salvia, purple asters, sweet violets, green ivy and a few well-placed yellow marigolds. Then it was the bride's turn.

Riding Hood had seen her before, when she'd had to be carried from the ballroom at Wendell's coronation after having done in her own mother in self-defense. That, she'd thought, had truly been an heroic deed worthy of song. The sheer tragedy of which it spoke proclaimed her strength; Riding Hood had thought for awhile that Wendell might proclaim the heir to his throne through her line, since he would have no children of his own. But the girl had succumbed to temptation and that was not to be. Now, even her father was leading her to her doom.

The sight made Riding Hood want to shout to him, "Don't you know what you're doing, you idiotic fool?" But she held her tongue. This was not her kingdom; she was not the queen, nor were these foolish people children. No doubt they thought the wolf to be sincere, since he had offered marriage - which she had never heard of one doing before - but she was not fooled. It wouldn't be long, she thought, before this Virginia met with some unfortunate 'accident.'

_She looks almost stricken now,_ she thought. _Perhaps she's having second thoughts? If so, it's a bit late, though I for one wouldn't blame her if she woke up and ran the other way._ Riding Hood had to give her credit for one thing, though - Virginia was definitely not a slave to fashion. Her gown, though somewhat similar in cut to the bridesmaid's, was the only one present without a bustle. Nor was it the customary blinding white, but a soft parchment shade perfectly suited for the season, which blended in with the other colors of the wedding in a way that stark white never would have done.

When she'd reached the end of her march, Riding Hood lost interest, however. She was well aware that listening too closely to the wolf lie shamelessly to the poor girl would only anger her and give her a headache. So she decided to devote the time to re-thinking her anti-wolf educational campaign. This little venture had taught her that needed doing if it had done nothing else. She had to take into account the wolfs' ability to blend in so completely with the human population (when it wasn't full moon, anyway). And her original purpose in coming was a complete waste of time for the same reason, so she might as well make up for that with something else to show for her visit, she thought.

A late arrival - a tall, thin man in a dark formal suit and black half-mask - sat down quietly beside her then, and folded his hands in his lap. He appeared to be listening raptly to the ceremony, so she was surprised when he turned and nodded to her in acknowledgment. She flushed and looked away, doubly embarrassed, not only to have been staring at him in the first place, but because he'd caught her at it. Yet it seemed she could still feel his eyes on her.

She chanced a glance back at him and found herself staring into his eyes, glittering green through the slits in the mask. Something inside her shifted; it was as if she recognized him though she was almost certain she'd never seen him before. She couldn't look away.

But he could. His eyes dropped to his hands, which she saw now were clenched tightly in his lap. A ragged sigh escaped him, and she saw the muscles in his jaw work with the effort of regaining his composure. He glanced back at her once, his thin-lipped mouth set in sorrow, his eyes wet and beginning to redden. Then, abruptly, he rose and exited the way he had come.

She wanted to follow, but her dress made her too conspicuous, she thought. Especially, with the train, it would be difficult to simply sneak away. _Fabulous!_ she thought, exasperated. _The one time in my entire life I actually need something easy to move around in like riding clothes and I'm not wearing them! Oh, well, I suspect he'll be at the reception. I'll see him then._ She refused to think about what she would do if he wasn't there.

* * *

_Virginia and I are married! I'm married to Virginia! Virginia is married to me!_ The litany ran through and through Wolf's mind, over and over. The entire day had been like a dream and he was a bit afraid he would wake up from it to find it wasn't true. He knew he would never forget the way she looked walking down that aisle toward him: an absolute vision! Not that she wasn't _always_ a vision to behold, he thought, but there had been something special about her this time. She had been coming to marry him. _And now she had!!!!!_

He had known she was frightened when she'd walked into the conservatory. Despite all those people, he could feel and know what was in his Virginia's heart. But it wasn't fear about marrying him anymore, no. It was all those people staring at her - at his Virginia whom he knew had once longed to be invisible. Of course she would be frightened by hundreds of eyes on her!

He'd known this as soon as he'd seen how many guests there were himself, and he'd had to fight hard to keep from biting Wendell. But he hadn't. That wouldn't have been appropriate for a wedding, and Virginia certainly wouldn't have approved of him doing that either. Still, if the huge crowd had made her change her mind - and he'd been half afraid it would - he'd have done a lot more than just_bite_ the king.

But she'd looked up at him then and overcome her fright. Her steps had been firm as she'd walked up to him, let go of her father, and taken his hand. He'd thought his own legs were going to buckle; he was so happy and giddy he'd been holding his breath, fearful that everything would somehow disappear if he let it go. Once he felt her hand in his, however, he could breathe, knowing it was all true, was becoming true, would always be true. They were married. He still had hold of her hand now, after the ceremony, as they waited for the guests to be seated at the reception dinner before the wedding party made their grand entrance.

He became suddenly aware that Wendell had been speaking to him.

"I said," the king repeated, "Were you still wanting to use my hunting lodge in the Disenchanted Forest for your honeymoon or had you decided to go off and look for that ancient dryad ruin in the Second Kingdom?"

"Well . . ." he began. The problem with looking for the ruin was that they'd have to spend too much time _looking_ for it. He really couldn't remember exactly where it was, though he didn't think it was more than two day's journey from where he'd grown up. That, however, was exactly what made him rather disinclined to go look for it. He'd end up paying courtesy visits on old family acquaintances instead of spending a glorious amount of time alone with his Virginia. Not that he didn't want them all to meet her, but . . . He had just begun to explain this to Wendell when his Auntie slipped into the room, her eyes wide with both worry and suppressed excitement. Curiously, he sniffed the air and would have staggered himself with what he discovered if he hadn't been sitting already, snugly next to Virginia on a divan.

His brother walked in.

Rafe was thinner than he remembered (though he had to admit his brother probably thought the same thing about him), but just as tall and straight. He reached up with one hand and untied the black mask that covered half his face, shaking his wavy brown hair loose as he pulled it away. It shocked Wolf how much older Rafe looked, although he knew he should have expected it; they hadn't seen each other in ten years; not since that last time they'd argued. Even now his Auntie was glancing fretfully back and forth between the two of them as if she expected it to start up all over again. But so far as Wolf was concerned, the heat of that quarrel had long since cooled - the perspective of spending nine years in prison would have seen to that, even if he had not found his wonderful Virginia. And if Rafe still somehow felt the antagonism keenly, Wolf doubted if he'd go so far as to make a scene at a wedding. At least, he wouldn't have done so when he was younger, so Wolf reasoned that age would not have made him less mature. But his aunt would know this too, so what was she worried about, he wondered, as he rose and turned to lift Virginia by the hand to meet him?

One of the fragrant double daisies that garnished her hair was starting to come loose, he noticed. In his opinion, this made her look even more engaging (if that were possible!), but he knew that she'd want it to be in place for meeting someone new. So he fixed it. When he turned back around, his brother was standing at his elbow.

Subconsciously, Wolf threw his shoulders back. Rafe and he were the same height, but his brother had always looked taller because he stood so straight, while Wolf, since childhood, had a tendency to slump. Life in prison had only exacerbated this problem, and he felt the shortcoming keenly now, as he did the difference in their voices when his brother asked to meet his wife. Rafe's voice was, and had been since early adolescence, a smooth, musical baritone, while Wolf's had always had a tendency to dissolve into gravel at inopportune moments. But the inadequacies which had always before plagued him seemed almost trivial now that he had Virginia. Happily, he introduced her. And when Rafe took her hand for the greeting, Wolf was completely unable to suppress his own smile at his brother's surprise, though Rafe said nothing about her condition other than a lilting, "Congratulations - twice," before favoring Wolf with an unreadable expression.

Anything else he might have said was lost, however, because Wendell, having heard the introduction, pounced forward and began pumping his brother's hand. Wolf did get the satisfaction of seeing the shock on Rafe's face when he found out the man yanking his arm in greeting was the king of the Fourth Kingdom, but it was rather short-lived, since the king immediately seized the opportunity to return to the problem he'd been discussing before Rafe entered: Did Rafe happen to know where the ruined dryad palace was?

"Yes," his brother replied, surprised at being asked such a question (for which Wolf could hardly blame him). But with a bit of encouragement, having been told why they wanted to know and shown the scrap of verse Tony had found in the records room, Rafe freely provided directions using landmarks Wolf remembered. Strangely, to Wolf, he made no comment on his brother's faulty memory, but Wolf shrugged this off. In ten years, Rafe had probably matured beyond such a need to prove his dominance - especially as Wolf had been absent all that time. In fact, he would have dismissed all strangeness in his brother's behavior entirely if his Auntie had not continued to regard Rafe with trepidation. He'd just decided to ask her what was the matter when a servant entered and announced it was time for them to be seated.

Rafe and Aunt Millie had left at once, as they were not part of the wedding party and had gone masked as the rest of the guests had done. Wolf immediately returned his attention to his new wife and promptly forgot about his brother.

* * *

Queen Riding Hood finally spied him coming into the banquet at the last moment. Of necessity, he'd taken a seat quite far from hers, so that she was forced to wait until the end of the last course before hoping to speak with him again. It made the meal seem interminably long and rather tasteless, she decided. But she was also aware that he was consuming her thoughts a bit too much. She was betrothed to Prince Gunther, second son of King Gregor of the Eighth Kingdom. They were scheduled to be married next spring. So, she knew she really had no business fantasizing about the Mysterious Man (as she thought of him). Unfortunately, she could do little else. Simply meeting him had done nothing but drive home the difference between her reaction to him and her reaction to Gunther. The marriage had been arranged. She had approved the choice of course - she didn't find Gunther objectionable - but it was basically a business arrangement. At the time, Riding Hood had seen nothing wrong with this. She liked everything planned out in advance and her life was no exception; she was quite sure she'd have been perfectly happy with Gunther as her husband if she'd simply never met _Him_. He'd touched something inside her that Gunther hadn't and probably couldn't; something she'd been quite happy never knowing existed, but which begged to be fulfilled now in a way she couldn't ignore. At the table, she'd completely forgotten the abhorrence and revulsion she'd expected to feel while eating in the company of numerous wolfs and focused her complete attention on thinking of some way she could contrive to be near him when the meal ended. 

It happened slightly sooner than she'd thought. He'd refused the dessert course - she'd seen him shake his head. In fact, he'd barely eaten anything, she noticed, though she was seated half a table away from him. Quickly, she took the opportunity to refuse the last course also, rose, and followed him from the room.

He'd gone outside. She found him standing in the garden, his hands clasped behind his back, staring at a fountain sparkling in the late afternoon sun. His head turned towards her sharply as if he'd heard her walk up behind him.

"Hello," she said, trying not to sound too tentative.

He nodded amicably to return the greeting, though he remained silent. His eyes looked wet, as they had in the conservatory during the ceremony.

For a brief moment, she wondered if that was what really attracted her to him; if, by his obvious sadness, he simply embodied some romantic notion she had of high tragedy, but she immediately discarded this notion. It had been his eyes that drew her, yes, but not their sadness (though she did ache to comfort him). It was the recognition she'd seen there, the sense of knowing that he was the person she'd been looking for, though she hadn't been aware of the searching. He'd recognized her, too - the inner her, not the queen of the Second Kingdom, she was sure. She'd seen the briefest flicker in his eyes before he'd looked away. Yet he had looked away, and he had left. He'd left twice.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have intruded," she murmured, starting to turn away.

"No," he declared sharply. "No, it's all right. It's just me. I shouldn't have come to a wedding, that's all."

The deep, rich baritone of his voice thrilled her. If asked before what she thought an ideal man's voice would sound like, she wouldn't have known, but she did now. The words, however, perplexed her, although she thought they might give a clue to the reason for his sorrow. Might he have had a wife or sweetheart that had died, she wondered? Bravely, she asked him, as gently as she could.

He nodded again, without speaking, then added, "But that was more than a year ago. I really need to get over it. I know my aunt is still worried about me."

Mention of an aunt sent her mind to work. She'd assumed previously that he must be some relation of the bride's, since she was acquainted with most of the royals and thought she would have recognized one, masked or not, at this level of intimacy. But if he were some royal cousin or nephew . . . Cinderella's children had quite a few offspring, she knew, with whom she had not kept up. And, he did have a slight bit of a reddish tinge to his wavy brown locks, she'd noticed.

"I shouldn't have said anything about my aunt, should I?" he asked as if reading her thoughts. "We're supposed to be in disguise . . ."

"I won't tell anyone," she assured him, then reached up to untie her mask. "But the disguise _is_ beginning to chafe a bit."

His hand reached up to touch hers as the mask dropped. It remained there, frozen, for just a moment, touching her cheek before he dropped it to his side.

"Is there a name to go with the face?" he asked softly, "Or is that too much of the disguise to ask you to give up?"

She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I've always hated my name. My parents named me according to a family tradition, and it just sounds so contrived. I've always wanted to be called Claire instead." She had no intention of telling him she'd been named Claret in an effort to give her a "red" name. Not only was it, in her opinion, quite awful, it might instantly identify her to him as the queen of the Second Kingdom, and she wasn't quite ready for that.

"Claire," he said slowly, as if tasting the sound. The vibration of his voice sent a little thrill down her spine.

He reached up to untie his mask. Involuntarily, her hand reached up at the same time. For a moment, they both hesitated.

"May I?" she whispered.

He nodded in acquiescence. She pulled at the string. As it fell away and she saw his face for the first time, his eyes - eyes the color of the forest at midsummer, she thought - looking into hers, she became aware as she hadn't been before of his physical nearness. His hand caught hers, still holding the fabric mask aloft. Suddenly frightened, she jerked her hand away and jumped back.

"Do you have a name?" she asked abruptly, latching onto the first innocent question that popped into her mind.

He smiled.

"My parents named me Rafael," he told her. "But everyone calls me Rafe."

His face had none of the bland handsomeness of the courtier, with its narrow breadth, thin but firm lips and high-bridged nose, but with the unmasking she had suddenly seen more, recognized more. She was about to make a terrible mistake and there was nothing she could think of to do to prevent it. The arrangement with Gunther had been made. She couldn't go back on it. Her advisors would never approve another in his place. Would they?

"You don't . . . happen to be royalty, do you?" she blurted.

His lips twitched in a little smirk that told her before he spoke that he was far from it and her heart sank.

"No," he said, then asked the natural corollary, "Are you?"

Mentally she cursed herself for asking the question in the first place, since it had only shortened their already short time together. But, she reflected stoically, she supposed it might be best. A real relationship with him could never be. It would only be cruel to prolong the agony of separation.

"Yes," she admitted, her voice small. He heard it nonetheless.

"Who are you then?"

She was sure his voice sounded as disappointed as she herself felt. That in itself made her heart ache more than her own longing. _Best to hurry and get it over with,_ she thought.

"I'm . . . I'm Riding Hood III, queen of the Second Kingdom."


	7. VI Red Riding Hood III

VI - Red Riding Hood III

She'd never seen anyone so angry, she thought. Not that he had shouted or used any physical violence, but the look on his face and in his eyes had been worse than a blow. If he'd had any magical power and ability, she knew she'd have been dead - no, not simply dead, but eradicated. Unable to bear more than a split second of his ire, she'd dashed back inside and hidden herself in the nearest alcove. Wendell's castle had several of these - small, intimate areas not quite large enough to be called rooms (by the measuring stick of royalty, at least) closed off with curtains to keep out the winter chill, and with a single bow window. She sat now in a wingback chair, sobbing and twisting his mask - which she still held - in her hands.

She deserved his reaction to her revelation completely, she had no doubt of that. She'd had absolutely no business doing what she'd done: Chasing after him following that meal. After all, she'd known ahead of time that he was probably unsuitable for her, even if she hadn't already been betrothed to Gunther. The Riding Hoods, unlike the descendants of Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel, whose romantic tales of 'happily ever after' were a part of their histories, married strictly for political expediency (although they were never required to pair with someone they found abhorrent). That was her heritage - pure practicality. Her grandmother may have wed the woodcutter who helped her slay that infamous wolf, but it had been a practical decision at the time. Nowhere in the story had a romance with the man ever been implied. She had led Rafe on. He had a right to be angry with her.

She reached up to wipe the tears from her eyes, and in doing so missed the movement of the golden velvet curtains to her left. When she saw him suddenly standing over her, she gasped, then cringed. _Has he come to tell me off?_ she wondered.

But he said nothing. She realized then he must have come to retrieve his mask and wearily handed it up to him. Their hands touched as he took it and she jerked hers once again away, turning her head to look out the window though she saw nothing but a teary blur.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"So am I," he replied, his voice low and hoarse, nearly a growl. He cleared his throat, but remained where he was and did not leave.

She looked up curiously.

"I shouldn't have reacted the way I did," he explained. He sounded more like his old self then, she thought, though there was something of a brittle quality to his manner. She supposed it had to do with him knowing she was royalty while he was not.

"No, it was my fault," she told him. "I should have told you who I was from the start."

He smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes.

"Not when you were in disguise, like everyone else," he said. "May I sit down?"

Surprised, she gestured for him to go ahead. Speaking with him had calmed her some, but it had also given her a bit of false hope. Fortunately, she thought, she was aware that it had, and she sternly told herself to stop it.

"Your majesty . . ." he began, but she immediately interrupted.

"No, no please," she said. "Please call me Claire. At least today."

The words had tumbled out before she could stop them. She realized only belatedly that it might have been better to have the formality to separate them. Nevertheless, it had been said. She couldn't take it back now.

"Claire," he said, her name in his voice catching at her heart as it had the first time he'd said it. "I am curious, so if you don't mind my asking, what is the queen of the Second Kingdom doing at the wedding of a half-wolf?"

She flushed. It was a perfectly natural question to ask, she knew, but she had no ready answer. The real reason she'd come seemed quite frivolous to her now, especially considering the naivete with which she'd made the decision. Nor was she sure he would understand the rivalry between the kingdoms if she told him how she resented Wendell's treatment of her. Her silence went on too long.

Finally, he said, "Odd that they felt a need for a costume affair after that pardon had been granted."

Her head snapped up, eyes wide and incredulous. _Had he understood after all?_ she wondered. _Could he somehow read her mind?_ The idea took her breath away.

"Yes," she breathed. "Exactly. I knew he meant it just as an insult to me. Wendell did, that is. That's why I came. Although . . ."

"The wolfs didn't leave their little corkscrew tails hanging out," he said, his lips twitching.

"No," she agreed, then realized what he'd said. "Isn't that pigs with corkscrew tails?"

"Oh, yes!" he agreed, his eyes laughing now, and quite bright. "Sorry. I get them confused sometimes. I suppose it's their eating habits."

She laughed.

"To be honest, though," she said, "They managed to behave themselves at the banquet."

"Yes, I noticed that," he told her. "The groom might have been mistaken for a normal person if we hadn't known otherwise."

"Yes," she agreed. Although most of her attention had been devoted to Rafe, she'd observed that particular wolf for a short time, since he was the only one present she was certain _was_ a wolf. And, she'd had to admit he was quite conversant with a knife and fork.

"Odd he didn't have his tail out, though," Rafe was saying, "Since everyone knew he was a wolf. Why hide it?"

"Probably he didn't want to frighten his bride," she said uncharitably. "Wouldn't do to have her run away screaming before he got her alone."

All the merriment in his manner vanished abruptly and he looked away, his posture tense, his jaw working. She remembered suddenly what he'd said before about having a wife or fiancé who had died.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have said anything about . . ."

He shook his head, still trying to regain his composure. She stopped talking and bit her lip.

After a moment, he took a ragged breath and quietly said, "So were you still looking for some way to teach King Wendell a lesson in manners?"

"Yes, why?" she asked, surprised. "Do you know of a way?"

"Possibly," he said. "Before the banquet I . . . well I wandered around quite a bit. And I happened to pass the room to where the wedding party had retired. I'm afraid I listened quite shamefully to their conversation, so I know at one point King Wendell asked if they intended to spend their honeymoon searching for some ruin in the Second Kingdom."

"Are you serious?"

"Quite," he assured her. "Although I didn't get the impression they would actually go there on their honeymoon, I'm sure they may try it shortly afterwards. And I have a feeling they'll try and do it without your knowledge. They were talking about retrieving some long-lost prophecy or something."

She raised her eyebrow. That Wendell might go behind her back to take something that rightfully belonged to her kingdom didn't surprise her at all.

"It would confound them no end if you were to find that prophecy first," he suggested, and explained what he'd heard about it: that it involved some verse scraps Wendell had found which referred to a 'Basquel Queen.'

Claire frowned, disappointed.

"Then they're not even completely sure there's any prophecy to be found," she pointed out.

"They seemed quite anxious to look for it there," he insisted. "Remember, what I heard was only part of a conversation."

She thought for a moment.

"But how would we know what we were looking for?" she asked, realizing only when he leaned close that she had tacitly invited him to accompany her on the search.

"There aren't likely to be many prophecies lying about," he told her. "And I, at least, recognized the ruin they mentioned as a place I'd once seen."

He told her then where it was and she shivered. _Of course it would be in the heart of the forest most thickly populated with wolfs,_ she thought.

"What were you doing there?" she asked, concerned that he would endanger himself to that extent.

"I travel around a lot," was the reply. "It's not dangerous, if you know when to travel. Of course it might be best if you didn't openly go as the queen."

_How true._

"If you can manage without any entourage at all, that would be the safest," he suggested. "I'm quite adept at driving a team. A couple traveling in a coach would be perfectly safe."

Her first instinct was to balk; she'd never been without at least a maid before in her entire life. Upon reflection, however, she decided that what he'd said was true. A pack of wolfs would be far more likely to attack someone who was obviously of society than they would peasants, and peasants had no servants (though it never occurred to her that peasants would probably not own a carriage either). Nor would she have a problem with trying to keep a maid from becoming hysterical if a wolf appeared. And, she thought, it wasn't as if she would really need one - she was quite capable of dressing herself, using the maid's services mainly to care for delicate garments and arrange her hair for court presentation, neither of which would be required.

"We should arrange to leave as soon as possible," he said.

The immediacy of his suggestion struck a note of fear into her heart. Though she'd tried to overlook it, it hadn't really escaped her attention that he'd essentially described a scenario in which they'd be alone together for over a week. Yet he knew now who she was, she thought, so she'd be doing nothing wrong. It was a well known fact that a Riding Hood could never marry a commoner, as was her previously announced betrothal to Gunther. She wouldn't be leading Rafe on. Nor would she be slighting Gunther in the least - the marriage itself was the binding contract, not the engagement, and since no affections were involved on either side she was free to live her life more or less as she chose until the ceremony. Perhaps Rafe was as anxious to make use of the time they could have together as she was, she thought. He was sitting there, his back straight, staring so intently at her that, looking at him, she nearly, but not quite, forgot her other objection.

"It's full moon in a week," she reminded him. "How will we handle that?"

"It's not so much of a ruin that there aren't some enclosed areas left of it. We can lock ourselves in one of those," he told her, then added, "If we wait too long, they may arrive ahead of us."

Her eyes lit up. Did he mean what she thought he did, she wondered? Was his plan not only to find the prophecy, but also to save the life of the heroine Virginia?

"Yes," she agreed. "I hadn't thought of that, but a ruined castle would be just the place for some wolf's unknowing victim to have an 'accident' befall her, wouldn't it?"

He smiled as if she'd read his mind, his teeth even and white.

"Exactly," he agreed.

* * *

Tony poured out the last of the bottle of champagne he'd taken up to his room. It was nearly midnight and he knew he ought to go to bed, but he was simply not at all sleepy, and the wine had not helped make him that way as he'd hoped it would. He took a sip and paced some more, stopping now and then to drum his fingers on a piece of handy furniture or run his fingers through his thinning hair. _Now_ he was agitated about the wedding, he thought, and laughed silently to himself. He'd been a rock at the ceremony, escorting his terrified daughter down the aisle to Wolf. He could feel her shaking; felt also the slight hesitation in her steps as the crowd first turned to look at her. But he had guided her to her husband-to-be, let her go, and calmly taken his seat. 

There had been no Master of Ceremony, no minister or other official to preside. The rites consisted of vows spoken aloud by the couple, composed by them for the occasion. Tony had held his breath, a little afraid that Virginia would forget her lines in a bout of stage fright, but she had spoken them unwaveringly, if not loudly, never taking her eyes from Wolf.

Then had come the banquet and reception, and he had been swept up in the celebration, eating, talking, and dancing with his daughter. She had looked radiant, he thought. More so then than in the conservatory, as if she had received something simply by being married that she had needed all her life in order to be whole. And though Tony begrudged the thought a tiny bit, he trusted Wolf to always love her.

It was only now, when everyone had finally retired and Tony had come back to his quarters alone that he felt her absence as a blow. He knew that was a little silly - she'd never shared these quarters with him anyway - but he couldn't help it. She was truly gone now, much more than she had been when she'd returned to New York and he'd chosen to stay here. She was gone to live her own life; a life that was patently not his. He felt a hollow ache in his throat, and promptly took another sip from his glass.

Without really meaning to, he suddenly remembered the first time he'd seen her, tiny and red, still wet with the amniotic fluid, wailing from the shock of birth. He'd been among the first generation of fathers permitted in the delivery room and he recalled how difficult it had suddenly become to breathe behind the surgeon's mask he was required to wear, overwhelmed with love for his new daughter and the immense responsibility of caring for one so helpless. But it had felt good to him then, that responsibility. It had not, he knew, felt good to Christine. She'd become severely depressed afterwards, and though the doctors had assured them both that postpartum depression was quite a common occurrence and nothing to worry about provided it was promptly treated, Tony could, in hindsight, trace all of Christine's odd behavior back to Virginia's birth.

But none of that had been noticeable on the day she was born. He remembered her reaching for the baby immediately, the smile on her tired face, and the sheer happiness of that ephemeral moment. At the time he'd thought that Christine had finally accepted her new role as a mother, which he knew he'd selfishly thrust upon her, and he'd stubbornly clung to that image through the next seven years, excusing when he couldn't ignore the neglect, the other men, and what he should have known was a drug habit. He'd kept his head in the sand well until that day she'd simply disappeared and he was forced to face what could have been such tragic consequences. And since then he'd always wondered if there might have been something he could have done differently to have prevented it. If he had paid more attention to her; acknowledged that a problem existed instead of inventing reasons why it did not, would she still be with him? After all these years he'd convinced himself that he no longer cared, but it had hurt when, the last time he had seen her alive, she'd told him, _I don't know who you are._ Yet he had never been able to firmly decide that any actions of his might have made a difference all those years ago except one: He might have agreed to let her have an abortion. Knowing what he knew now, however, even if he were magically transported back in time to live his life over again (which he was slightly afraid might be more possible than he'd ever thought), he could never change his mind about that. He loved Virginia too much. So much so that he would willingly make that decision without hesitation, even knowing what the consequences would be. Maybe that was the ultimate responsibility, he thought, letting them go when they're grown no matter how lonely it makes you. Might Christine have seen something of this at Virginia's birth?

"No," said a familiar voice behind him. "I'm afraid my refusal to accept responsibility was just that, as ashamed as I am to admit it."

He spun around, nearly choking on the champagne, unable to keep from spilling some of it. Christine stood there, leaning against the small table next to his reading chair. She smiled, the little half-smile he'd always loved. Who was he kidding, he wondered? There hadn't been any mannerism she had that hadn't blown him away.

"You're alive?!!!" he asked incredulously.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling sheepishly and bit her lip.

"No," she admitted.

"A ghost?" he guessed, then added, "Or did I just drink too much of this stuff?"

"Neither," she told him. "It's hard to explain. The best I can do is say I'm a sort of fairy godmother now, but that's not really accurate, either. It implies that I can grant wishes, which I can't."

He supposed it fit, in a way. The Christine before him was the older version, the one his present age, who had claimed not to know him, dressed in a green velvet cloak of a style worn in the kingdoms. Surely, he thought, if his imagination had conjured her up, she would have been the Christine from his memory - the one he'd just remembered from Virginia's birth day or from his own wedding, radiant as she'd looked then.

"I wish you'd been at Virginia's wedding," he blurted.

"What makes you think I wasn't?" she asked.

He thought about that for a moment, then asked tentatively, "So you recognize us now?"

"Oh, yes," she said, looking away pensively for a moment. _Could ghosts cry?_ he wondered, but before he could follow that line of thought, she continued, "I have Virginia to thank for that. Thank you."

"Why thank me?"

"For wanting her so badly, I suppose," she explained. "Insisting that she be born. I really did need to have someone besides myself to think about, even though I know it seemed otherwise."

"But I was just thinking that if it wasn't for her . . ."

"If it hadn't been that it would have only been something else," she told him. "Virginia wasn't the problem. I was. I didn't want to grow up; I wanted someone to always take care of me. That was the real problem. That would have caught up with me eventually, even if we'd never had a child."

Tony thought of the bankruptcy he'd endured less than a year after Christine had left. He'd always tried to tell himself it had only happened because he'd been too distraught from the mess of his personal life. Hadn't it? Was that what she meant?

"You can't second-guess it," Christine told him, evidently reading his thoughts. It was an eerie feeling; he'd used to wish fervently that she could, and now it was only after she had gone . . . but she was continuing with an explanation, "There are far too many variables involved for anyone to be able to say that if only this one thing had or hadn't taken place, everything would be different. But I know I would have ended up as I did, nonetheless."

"Destiny?" he whispered.

"If you like," she allowed. "But not in the way some think of it, as a pre-determined set of actions that can't be changed. I made my decisions. No one else did. There was simply a greater probability of my decisions being the way they were rather than otherwise. It's quite difficult to go against the grain of long-established habits and thought patterns, but it can be done. Virginia managed it."

He looked at her questioningly.

"She was finally able to acknowledge and return the wolf's love," she explained. "It was far more likely that she would stay as she was and return to her old way of life in New York. He helped her to change the path of her life, but it was her decision, nonetheless."

"Then they weren't destined to be together," he concluded. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Not at all. It's certainly their destiny to be together_ now. _We make our own destiny, as I did when you convinced me to go ahead and have Virginia. If it hadn't been for her, I'd never have gotten free."

"But you . . ." he'd wanted to say _you're dead_, but it sounded too ridiculous.

She heard it anyway.

"Yes," she agreed. "And I thought it was too late, too, there at the end. But it wasn't. I did, finally, manage to grow up."

"And?"

"I have a certain responsibility to warn you of what is about to happen," she informed him, "Although I'm constrained from saying too much about it."

"Does this have to do with that forget spell and scrap of verse we found?"

"Yes. Something very old and powerful is about to wake. More powerful than anyone expected it to be at the first, even when it altered the destiny of both this world and yours long ago. It will fight to prevent what it willed from changing."

"Both worlds?" he asked, astounded. "Does that have something to do with what happened to us being shown on TV?"

"Yes," she told him. "The guardians are doing what they can to help, in the ways available to them. Unfortunately, the enemy has methods of blocking them. Whatever happens, remain true to your task. Don't let anything, no matter how innocent or reasonable it sounds, stop you."

"Guardians?" he asked, confused. "What do you mean? Who are they? Stop us from what?"

"Most think the guardians long dead, but they still exist, although they tend not to think of time in the same way we do - but you don't need to worry about them," she said cryptically. "And you will know when the time comes."

She started for the door, and he followed, hurriedly.

"No, wait!" he cried. "You can't leave! I don't have a clue what that all meant!"

"I'm sorry, that's all I can say."

He set his drink down and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Will I see you again?" he asked, reaching for her.

"No," she said gently. "I'm dead now, remember?"

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. He closed his eyes, burying his face in her auburn hair.

"Goodbye, Tony," she whispered.

He remembered nothing else until he woke alone in his bed the next morning.

* * *

Oddly, the old ruin hadn't been that far from Riding Hood's palace. They'd needed to stay only one night in an inn, then taken a little-used road that ran to the northwest not far north of the village. It had been slow going, overhung with vines and low branches, while in a couple of places Rafe'd had to stop and clear a sapling or two out of their way. But they had made it, with a little daylight still left. 

He'd found a secure place to stable the horses, which had made her wonder if he knew the place quite well, but when she asked he'd simply told her that he'd poked around the outside quite a bit once before, but had never been into what was left of the main building. That had been left for them to do together, as finding a safe-looking room in which to spend the night had been. There were two high enough up to not be easily accessible by window to someone on the ground, and with chimneys intact enough not to send smoke back into the room with them. Claire lay near the fire Rafe had built in one of them now, staring at him curled up sleeping a short distance away, his features lit by the dying flames.

She ached for him.

_I should never have come on this trip,_ she thought. _I'm doing nothing but making everything worse for myself._ Not that Rafe hadn't been a perfect gentleman, she knew. At the inn, he'd given her the bed, sleeping in the corner on the floor himself (they'd thought it prudent to appear to be a real couple traveling together, so hadn't asked for separate rooms), and tonight he'd spread out the sleeping pad she'd brought, which was big enough for them both, and then moved away several feet before lying down himself. It was worse, in a way, than being always near him, she thought. After all, it wasn't as if he didn't want her. She could see it in his eyes, feel him looking at her; he seemed to stare at her constantly to the point where she didn't know how he was able to watch the road, though he managed it somehow. And when he'd offered to show her how to drive the team, he'd been meticulously careful to keep their hands from touching, though once it had been necessary and she knew he'd left his hands over hers longer than he'd had to; felt the extra pressure from his palms and fingers before he'd released her and looked away. The lesson had ended then and they'd driven on in silence for the next thirty minutes, until it the sun had gone down behind the trees and she'd begun to shiver. Somehow he had noticed, though how she didn't know; she had tried not to be obvious about it. Instinctively, he had reached for her to pull her close, but as she watched, he'd checked himself, then reached into the wagon behind him, grabbed a blanket and tossed it to her. She had wrapped herself in it, but continued to shiver, although not from the cold.

At the inn, they'd posed as a married couple, and to ensure the ruse was believed, he had escorted her up to their room, his hand possessively pressed against her lower back. She had known the contact was minimal and meant to be part of a performance, but when the door had shut behind them, she'd been unable to stop herself from turning towards him, her face upturned, lips parted, her body longing to be touched more completely. He had faced her, inches away, and she'd seen his nostrils flare, the pupils of his eyes grow larger until there was only the tiniest ring of green showing around them, and heard his breath quicken. But he'd turned suddenly away and told her in a rough voice that she could have the bed, he'd be perfectly comfortable on the floor.

Looking at the room, she hadn't seen how; it was smaller than one of her closets, barely large enough for the bed. She hadn't argued, however. She was the queen; they both knew nothing could come of it, so if he chose to distance himself from her, she couldn't complain. Just because she was willing to give herself entirely to him for the short period of time they had available did not mean he was willing to do the same. And he had managed to curl up in a corner of the painted wood floor and sleep, his back against the whitewashed walls, while she lay on the sagging mattress.

Strangely enough, the lack of the multitude of creature comforts to which she was accustomed as the queen bothered her very little. It had been a slight shock at the beginning when he'd chosen a small, open wagon for their transportation, but when he had folded his arms and smiled, saying that the peasantry certainly had nothing better, she had both seen the logic of his statement and stopped caring so long as she was with him. That feeling she had, that being near him meant more to her than any trappings of royalty, had stayed with her so that she'd scarcely felt the lumps in the mattress, though, she knew she'd never had noticed them at all had he shared it with her. Nor did it bother her in the least to lie on the floor now, where she could gaze upon him, the light on his face changing from golden yellow to silvery white as the fire burnt itself out. She glanced up overhead at the space in the wall where a window had once been, seeing the Moon, huge and round just beneath the strut of a flying buttress. It shone down on them both in warning; tomorrow it would be full. Tomorrow the wolfs would be out.

The morning was bright and golden, however, the sunshine sparkling on the multicolored leaves of the surrounding forest, uncaring of the night to come. In the cheerful daylight, Claire could forget that the forest surrounding her was pregnant with danger, waiting only for moonrise to send it forth. Now, having stepped outside into the crisp morning air, she saw the place as it was meant to be seen - in the morning light - and stood transfixed by the sight. The trees, though individually perfectly ordinary trees, conveyed an ethereal quality to the landscape in a way she couldn't quite define. Some mixture of color and angle of light was at work, but that didn't entirely explain what she saw. It was almost as if she could feel the forest as a living thing, beautiful and remote, as something longed for that didn't quite exist. It reminded her suddenly that the Basquel - the people mentioned in the prophecy she'd come to find - were said to have been the dryads of legend. Most claimed the dryads hadn't really existed; that they were the people of children's stories, no more, and Claire had been one of them. But, looking at the forest now she began to wonder if the stories might be true.

Behind her, the ruin, lit by the same sun, seemed a part of the subtle enchantment. It appeared to have been virtually carved from the side of a hill, what remained of the walls and parapets solid slabs of the limestone bedrock shaped and molded into delicate spires. One entire side had collapsed in a mass of detritus, but even this seemed part of the plan, tying the structure back to the rock which had formed it. _Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . ._

The old palace was dead; as dead as the forest was alive, but it conveyed a reminder of its long-ago beauty even so, though even that was plainly mortal. It was as if it should have been the subject of an artist's work, entitled _The Death of Beauty,_ she thought. A sadness overcame her for the fate of the unfortunate Basquel - the dryads, as she thought of them now - who had met some unrecorded tragic end. Centuries from now would her palace lie as this one, crumbling into oblivion, her people all but forgotten save in a half-believed legend? If so, what was the point of what she did now? Those who had ruled from here were people, with loves, desires, and responsibilities, just as she was. Yet all the decisions they had made came to nothing in the end. They were gone.

She realized she was getting fanciful and morose, beginning to look for a way to justify some method which would allow Rafe to remain in her life. _I'd best stop it,_ she thought. _Even if I were willing to ignore my responsibilities, my advisors would not. I'm the queen. It can't be otherwise._

Rafe walked suddenly into her line of vision from where he had been feeding the horses while she'd lost herself in reverie. He smiled when he saw her, an instant, engaging smile as if the sheer sight of her pleased him, and for a moment she had the odd impression that he was somehow as ethereal and mystical as their surroundings. But as he came nearer, into the shade of a broken wall, she decided she had simply gotten far too fanciful and told herself sternly to stop it. She would be heartbroken enough when their time together ended; no sense making it worse by over-romanticizing the whole thing.

He stopped several feet from her, his face having assumed its usual seriousness, and said, "I suppose we should get to work looking for it while we have the daylight."

She agreed and they both went inside.

They searched for most of the day, through broken bits of furniture and rotted books that crumbled nearly to dust when they were handled, breaking only for lunch. Rafe, she noticed, ate quite well, which pleased her since until then he'd seemed little interested in food, eating barely enough (she thought) to remain alive. For awhile she'd thought this a good sign, even imagining that the time he spent with her helped him somehow to forget the wife that had died, but as the light began to fade, she noticed suddenly the moisture on his brow and temples from where he was perspiring, though the air was still quite chilly. _Is he getting sick on me?_ she wondered, worried not for herself but for him, as she had no means of calling him a doctor, alone at this remote ruin in the midst of wolf country. Come morning she might be able to handle the wagon and horses - he _had_ shown her how, as unpracticed as she was - but tonight of all nights was far too risky to chance venturing forth. She had to hope that if he were sick it would not be too serious. Cautiously she reached out to feel his face.

He recoiled at her touch, glaring at her.

"What are you doing?" he demanded angrily.

"You're burning up," she declared. His skin had felt fiery to her; she trembled at the thought of how high his temperature must be.

But he merely swallowed hard and growled, "I'm fine."

"No, you've got a fever . . ." she argued.

"I SAID I'm fine!" he insisted tersely.

Shocked and unaccustomed to being dismissed, she set her lips and deliberately pressed her palm to his forehead. His hand flew up to yank hers violently away.

"_LEAVE ME ALONE!"_ he shouted angrily, though he held fast to her hand and she could feel him trembling. Abruptly then, he let it go, a flash of recognition coming over his features, and he pressed his fingers to his temples, his face a mask of pain.

"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely.

_He's delirious,_ she thought. Aloud, she said, "Your head hurts too?"

He nodded, his eyes shut.

"You should lie down," she told him quietly.

"Wouldn't help," he told her.

"This has happened before?"

He nodded again.

"It won't last long," he assured her. But he belied this reassurance by gasping and clutching his hand to his stomach.

Without thinking, she put her hand on his, realizing only when he looked down at her how close she was to him. His eyes were nearly yellow in the lamplight, clear and pale, the pupils huge and dark. They searched her face hungrily as he licked his lips, his breathing ragged. She felt her pulse racing as her own skin burned. For a moment he hesitated and she thought he might once again turn away, but he lunged suddenly forward, his fingers digging into her arms, pressing his mouth hungrily to hers like a man starved. The kiss lingered, deep and passionate, until he finally broke it only to trail a line of fire with his lips and tongue down her throat to her collarbone. She gasped and sagged against him, feeling his hands on her back, and she ran hers around behind his shoulders, feeling the play of the muscles beneath his shirt as she slowly slid them down to his waist.

Without warning he grabbed her by the hands and shoved her roughly away.

Claire stumbled; her heel caught on the hem of her skirt and she fell backwards onto the floor, shocked at his reaction. Had she done something wrong, she wondered? Rafe had seemed as anxious as she for the kiss. Had he not meant to act on his feelings? He was still standing where he'd been, staring at a point somewhere in the space between them, his breathing deep and labored. Guiltily, she remembered then what she had forgotten in the heat of passion: How ill he had been. Was he feeling so much worse? Was that the problem?

As if to confirm her worst fears, his hand returned to his stomach and he leaned slightly forward, his face twisted in momentary agony. But to her surprise, when his eyes focused upon her they were full not of pain or love, but hatred.

"You killed them," he said, his voice low and hollow

"What?"

Was he remembering something in his delirium she wondered?

"You killed them," he repeated, and to her horror, he began to laugh softly, a slow, horrible, self-mocking laugh.

"Do you mean your wife?" she asked tentatively.

"He was still alive when I found him, you know," Rafe went on. "My son. But his head was smashed in. I tried . . . " - his voice went away as his tears started. For a moment she thought he might even pass out, but he swallowed and managed to continue, "I carried him to . . . but he couldn't . . . and his . . . they . . . in my hand. He was only three . . . Just three . . ."

He did break down then, the tears streaming from his eyes as his mouth worked, but he remained on his feet where he was, the knuckles on his hands white with the tension, his face a mask of agony and despair, though she was unable to distinguish how much of the pain was purely physical. "You killed them," he repeated. "No!" she assured him.

"You DID!" he insisted. "You! Your orders. You're the queen."

"No!" she cried. "No! I've never ordered anyone . . ."

He laughed again, more loudly, in a way that frightened her.

"Don't you know what I am, Claire?" he asked. "Haven't you guessed? I stopped you before you discovered something that would frighten you away, screaming."

"What do you mean?"

"You kissed an animal, Claire. A nasty, filthy animal. The kind you issued orders to exterminate."

_No,_ she thought. _It can't be. He can't be a wolf. I love him.  
_  
"You don't believe it?" he demanded, his eyes blazing. "Shall I prove it to you?"

Before she could think of a reply, he was upon her, but he hesitated inches from her face, his eyes suddenly uncertain, inhaled deeply and sighed. For some reason unfathomable to her, she found this little action deeply sexual. But before she had a chance to recover from this discovery, his eyes grew hard again and he snatched her hand, holding it fast in a grip like iron. He pulled her slowly towards him, sliding her hand beneath his shirt, while his other hand pressed her body against his. His bare skin radiated heat; it felt searing to her hand as he forced it inexorably around to his back to stroke the soft, downlike hair that grew there before slipping it beneath the back waistband of his trousers. She pulled away a little, suddenly more resistant, afraid now of what she might find, but he only grew more insistent and tightened his grip.

Her eyes were squeezed shut and she held her breath against the coming knowledge, but at the same time she was aware of his hard, ragged breathing and a deep longing within herself that she tried to deny. As her fingers brushed the soft fur of his tail, he gave a little gasp, and she flinched, a wave of revulsion sweeping over her at the reality even as she wanted him at the same time.  
He tore her hand away and shoved her down and away from him. Her back hit the wall with a thud, her head jarring. She blinked, too shocked for a moment to think. When she looked up, Rafe was gone.

Claire didn't realize she was crying until she felt the tears drip from her chin. For a moment more she fought to deny the truth of what she knew, but the imprint of his tail had been burned into her hand and she felt it still; the hard solidity of it beneath the cover of velvety fur; warm, burning with the fevered heat of his body. Rafe was a wolf. She had to face it.

A sob escaped her, then another, until the dam finally burst and she wept freely, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring at the single oil lamp they'd brought without seeing it. After awhile, she realized she had no idea why she was crying. Was it disappointment, she wondered? Disillusionment? Shame? Fear? _No,_ she thought, and the realization surprised her. She hadn't been at all afraid. Not for herself, at any rate. And the shame she felt was not that she'd had carnal thoughts about a wolf; still had them - the revelation about his nature hadn't filled the aching need for him inside her. The shame was that she had so wholeheartedly condemned those who had fallen to this temptation before her. It was, however, not the source of her tears. No, secretly she knew why she cried. She knew why.  
Another torrent burst free and she buried her face in her skirts to muffle the sound she didn't want him to hear. Finally, gasping, she looked up. The flame wavered briefly, throwing gaunt shadows around the long-dead room. She hadn't realized how dark it had become. Confused, she tried to recall why that fact should disturb her, then remembered: Tonight was full moon. The wolfs would be out. Rafe . . . 

She scrambled to her feet in a sudden panic. Rafe was a wolf and he hated her. She was all alone here with him. He would turn into a beast and . . .

Her eyes darted wildly to the single exit that led from the room. Beyond the gothic arch of the doorway lay blackness. She swallowed, all the tales she'd heard about wolfs since childhood returning to her. Desperately, she tried to fight them away, telling herself that since she now knew so many were untrue, that the beastly ones might be falsehoods as well, but her fear refused to leave. She walked slowly towards the door. A small sound like an echo made her shudder, but it was merely the wind in the leaves outside.

Moonlight shone through a high window, hung over the door to the great entry hall. It lit the ruined stone staircase in a silvery wash, the wide cracks in its treads like black brushstrokes. Picking up her skirts, she ran down it as if pursued, not daring to look behind her, but as she passed the main door, she suddenly stopped as if mesmerized.

The pale limestone glowed whitely in the moonlight, its fractured surface gleaming as if it held some enchantment all its own. Leaves rattled dryly in the wind, then grew suddenly still. A brighter line of white stood out along the edge of a wall that had collapsed into so much rubble. Claire thought it some trick of the light, illuminating a heretofore unseen angle of carving, but as she continued to stare at it, fascinated, it grew slowly upwards, pale against the black of the surrounding forest and velvet sky, spreading slowly out on one side, becoming a thin spire capped with an oriel room. Its windows remained dark, menacing, as if some evil dwelt inside. Claire shivered. In the distance a wolf howled and the construct vanished to nothingness. She looked at the mound of broken stone beneath where it had been and realized she had seen an image from the past; a view of what had been before the destruction. The mound was all that was left of the tower.

The wolf howled again and another answered it, then another, closer this time. She edged past the rubble of the broken tower and slipped back through the door. There was no safety outside on this night. Her only hope lay in sticking to their original plan; she'd have to return to their safe room and hope the barricade held against Rafe.

She climbed the stairs once more, hesitating when she got to the top. Should she return for the lamp she'd left behind, she wondered? No, she decided, that would take her too far from where she needed to go. Carefully, she set off down the dark left-hand corridor, groping her way forward. All was still. Her fingers inched forward. At last they found the corner, where the corridor branched suddenly to the right. Her hand gripped the raised stonework of the quoin and she crept outwards, squinting into the darkness. Far away she thought she saw a faint light, coming from the room whose safety she sought. She blinked. It was still there.

_Yes,_ she thought. _He did build a fire in there earlier, against the chill. There must still be a few embers glowing._

From the distant end of the hall, a breeze filtered towards her, lifting her hair. She walked slowly towards it, her heart pounding. The rectangle of the doorway appeared, a slightly brighter spot of darkness. Her pace quickened.

The noise stopped her. It was low and hushed, reaching her ears only in fragments, but in the silence of the long-abandoned ruin, unmistakable. Someone was crying softly. Someone in the room that was her destination. It stabbed at her heart as if the ache already there were not enough. Shaking, she crept slowly to the doorway and peered around what was left of the frame.

Rafe knelt on the floor in front of the dying fire, sitting on his heels, his back to her, still wearing the long jacket she'd never seen him without. His shoulders shook with the sobs, punctuated now and then with a gasp of agony as he bent nearly double with abdominal cramps. At this distance, she could hear him, between bouts of pain, murmuring some rambling litany in a low voice, though the words eluded her. She imagined he was speaking of his dead child, the one he'd accused her of killing. The one she had killed, she acknowledged, forcing the thought into the open. He had been right. She was the queen, and therefore responsible for the way she had led her subjects. She had to accept it.

His image grew blurry. Vaguely, she wondered if it had begun to rain, then realized she was crying. The breeze blew stronger again, through the long-broken window. She shivered and blinked the tears away.

Rafe gasped again. She longed to go to him, but couldn't. The fear she had inside, however, was not the fear of any frightful form he would take, only fear of well-deserved rejection. How had it happened so for her, she wondered? Why had she been destined to love a man whose family she had killed? Why was she born a Riding Hood? What cruelty of fate had done this to her?

In front of her, his body suddenly convulsed, and he uttered what sounded like a low growl. She watched in fascination, expecting his outline to shift form into some misshapen creature, but saw nothing change except his posture: He threw his shoulders back and panted, as if to get his breath, then let it go in a mournful whine. The sound struck her as so wolf-like that she would have known the change had come upon him even had she not just then noticed his hands: He still clenched them, as he had before, but now, instead of nails, the fingers ended in wicked looking claws. The beast was before her, though it was no mindless killer, but as sad and heartbroken as the man it had been. Nor had it needed to spill blood or rape an innocent in order to alter itself, as two of the most popular theories suggested. The transformation was not an orgy; the wolfs did not receive sexual satisfaction from it. They labored and gave birth. Nothing more.

And she had killed a three year old boy.

Unbidden, or maybe subconsciously wished for, a sob escaped her into the silence. The wolf heard it. He turned, slowly, and looked into her eyes.


	8. VII The Prophecy Interpreted

VII - The Prophecy Interpreted

Wolf leaned back in the cushioned carriage, still not quite able to take in the present state of his fortunes. He and Virginia had ridden out from Wendell's castle five days ago and were rapidly approaching their destination: the ruined dryad castle, tentatively identified as the Basquel royal palace. He had been amazed at how easy it had been to cross the border, especially with the traffic jam of carts ahead of them waiting to be searched for stowaway wolfs (as if most wolfs would care to travel that way, he thought, though he knew it was a possibility for the sick and injured, as well as for mothers with very young cubs). That thought made him look down at his wife, asleep in his lap. A knife jabbed at his heart as he imagined what would happen to her if she were caught the way those young mothers sometimes were - he knew the penalty for fornication with a wolf in the Second Kingdom.

His hand tightened protectively around the very slight roundness at her lower belly. If he concentrated, he could hear the cub's heartbeat now even over the road noise, a galloping, doubletime staccato to Virginia's slower pulse rate. Normally his hearing was that acute only during full moon, but the mating bond his Auntie had described permitted him the heightened senses every day, with an extra bonus - free of compulsions - when his cycle peaked. Now that he knew what it was, he actually looked forward to full moon. During the last one, he'd even been able to hear the cub moving around, sloshing in the birthwater.

He and Virginia had been married now for well over a month - two full moons had gone by and then some - and he had never been so deliriously happy in his life. The only real blemish in his joy was the feeling he couldn't shake that he would wake up one day and find everything taken from him. Just the thought of it was almost enough to bring tears. He blinked and looked out the window at the old familiar countryside.

Wolf was still worried about the curse.

They had all discussed it unendingly, of course, after he and Virginia had returned from their - _sigh_ - honeymoon. Huff, puff, he would never forget that three weeks, he thought. _No sirree!_ But they'd had to come back. Wendell had suggested they call for volunteers from his officers and Tony had offered to go himself, but Wolf had known he had to be the one. The king's officers were all cowards - they'd proved that so far as he was concerned that night during the first full moon when Wendell had come into the dungeon to investigate the noise. He had no doubt that if they were sent, they'd spend their time away at an inn, then return saying nothing could be found when in fact they'd never tried to look. And Tony . . . well, while Tony had improved greatly in the time he'd known him, he was still way too likely to just foul things up. And Wolf could just imagine what Tony would be like under a curse.

But there was another reason that Wolf was the best one of them for the job; a reason no one but himself knew about. He knew he really should have told Virginia, but he wasn't sure how she'd take it considering what had happened with her mother. At least she had never questioned his authority on magic - either about what he knew or in exactly what kind of school he had acquired the information. But while he would have preferred to go alone, leaving her and the cub somewhere safe, she of course had refused to comply. He hadn't tried to force the issue, since he knew that it really wouldn't make a whole lot of difference in the long run: If he became cursed, so could his family be, whether they were with him or not. His aim was to somehow avoid being struck by the curse, if such a thing were possible. He only hoped he was good enough to pull it off: The curse had obviously been placed by someone who was extremely powerful, and Wolf had never made it past the second level in the Wizards' school. Not that he couldn't have, or so they'd told him. He'd simply decided that wizardry was not for him. There was too much study involved; too much time spent inside memorizing things. Plus - and he had to admit this - he had been fundamentally afraid of it. He'd simply seen too many wizards for whom the magic had become an addiction. They no longer controlled it - it controlled them. Wolf had enough experience with loss of control during full moon to voluntarily risk more. What he _had_ gained from the time he'd spent in the school was knowledge of how and why the magic worked. That was what he would need to use.

Virginia shifted position. Wolf looked down at her and felt his love for her well up, nearly threatening to break him apart from the inside with its strength and intensity. Curiously, he realized the feeling exactly fit the definition he'd heard in school of what would happen if a wizard lost control of his power: He could be torn apart from the inside. If this was the feeling it supplied, he thought, he didn't wonder at its addictiveness. And, he was very glad he'd decided not to pursue it.

* * *

Virginia leaned back in the warm water of the soaking tub. It felt so wonderful to just sit and soak, no distractions, no interruptions. 

But with that thought came a soft knock at the door.

"Ma'am?"

Virginia removed the cloth from her eyes.

"Hmm?" she murmured, then realized where she was and what was planned for that night. "Oh. Yes, I'll be out in a minute."

Molly was busying herself laying her mistress's dress out on the bed. Virginia had chosen it earlier that week, just for this occasion: a dress of black velvet with an ivory silk corset that had rococo red roses embroidered on it. She slipped it on over her head, then walked over to the column waiting for Molly to lace her up.

She felt the laces move, but they didn't tighten. Mystified at what Molly was doing, Virginia turned around. Wolf stood there in her maid's place, his eyes the greenest she'd ever seen them. He leaned in close, inhaling her scent and nuzzling her cheek before turning her around and starting to lace the corset, very slowly. She closed her eyes, gasping with pleasure each time he tightened it, tingling at the feel of his hands on the small of her back. She could feel his hot breath on her neck and heard him growl softly. When he finally tied the corset off, he ran his hands down the smooth sides, feeling the curve of her waist. His fingers passed the lower edge of the corset then and traveled on down to her hips, and finally to her thighs.

She tried to turn around, hungry for him, but he held her fast, cradling her between his arms as his teeth nibbled at her neck, giving her goosebumps. She shivered . . .

"Virginia? Are you in there?" she heard her father say from outside in the hallway.

She sat up with a start, still in the tub. Had it all been a dream, she wondered with a sigh of disappointment?

"Yes, I'll be out in a minute," she called as she stood up and looked down at what she perceived as the sluglike shape of her body in dismay.

"Well, no corset for you," she told herself grimly. "That's for sure." Her eyes looked into the full-length mirror across from her. _Ugh,_ she thought. _I don't even look pregnant, why is that? I just look dumpy. It's not fair._ Her waist had filled out some on the sides, and her lower abdomen stuck out a little bit, but not enough to signify her as obviously pregnant to someone who didn't know. She'd given up on trying to hold her stomach in a couple of weeks ago, when it just became too difficult. Her hand went to the slight rise beneath her navel. She stared at herself a moment longer in resignation, then leaned over to get out of the tub and slipped . . .

* * *

Wolf caught her as she jerked and sat up. He could hear her heart racing with the terror at her dream and tried to calm her: 

"Virginia, it's all right." He caressed her arm and touched his hand to her cheek. "It's all right."

She hugged him.

"Sorry," she said. "I just dreamed I started to fall, that's all."

Something in her voice and in the way she was still hugging him tightly made him think it wasn't 'all', but he wasn't going to force her to say anything she didn't want to. Not right now, anyway. Still, there was one thing he did need to find out.

"You weren't dreaming about anything to do with where we're going, were you?" he asked.

She sat up and looked at him.

"Oh," she said, "No. Nothing like that."

But she stared out the window and didn't look at him. He put his arm around her and snuggled close. She smiled wanly at him for a moment, then continued her examination of the countryside. Fortunately it wasn't long before they reached the inn.

It was an expensive inn for where it was, but he knew the reason: They were now deep in wolf country and the owners used cost as a means to keep any potential wolf customers away. In this way, they were able to offer upscale travelers the promise of a wolf-free premises. Not that any wolf would have been foolish enough to openly travel as what he was - he would have been killed immediately - but the local population was well aware that wolfs were often disguised. He was going to have to be very careful.

"I know this place," he told Virginia. "Whatever you do, try not to call me Wolf while we're here." He told her what would happen to them if the owners found out what he was.

"Well let's not stay here then," she said reasonably.

"There isn't any other place," he announced, which was quite true. There was one inn on the southern road - a simpler place of lodging with tiny whitewashed rooms - but it was too far. And, they'd have to pass the cutoff for their destination in order to reach it anyway. Sleeping outside as wolfs usually did was also out of the question. The obvious wealth their carriage conveyed would make such an act suspicious in the extreme: wealthy people didn't sleep outside. Plus, Wolf had a more personal reason for wanting to spend the night at an inn. It was quite cold outside now - the temperature would be well below freezing by morning - and he didn't want his pregnant, non-wolf wife sleeping outside in the cold any more than was absolutely necessary.

He steeled himself and opened the wooden plank door.

For all his worry, the evening had passed without incident. The bed had been soft, the food delicious - and he had managed to behave himself quite well even though he had been hungry. Of course their obvious affluence helped a lot, as did letting Virginia do all the talking. He smiled to himself at the memory of how she'd icily stared the proprietress down when the woman had started becoming too nosey about their destination. Wendell had taught her that aristocratic trick before they'd left, and she'd learned it well, he thought. No, handling the innkeeper and her family hadn't been hard at all. What had been difficult was the night he'd spent with Virginia.

She'd been in a dejected state, he thought, ever since she'd had that dream in the carriage. And, while for awhile he'd thought she'd gotten over it - she'd seemed almost her old corky self while managing the old biddy who ran the inn - when they'd finally retired to their room for the night, it had come back. He'd asked her again what was wrong, and she'd, of course, said _nothing_, but had hugged and then cuddled with him in such a needy way that he'd known it was really _something._

Any other time he'd have been quick to reassure her, but it was very obvious to him that nothing but a full physical mating would have done it - and he couldn't comply for fear he would start howling and give them both away. Virginia'd said she understood, but he didn't think she had, not really. She'd just turned over on her side, away from him. He'd been miserable all night, thinking how miserable he'd made her. But that wasn't the whole of it, either.

He knew that what had started her to feeling bad was her dream. She'd been just fine - happy and contented - before it. And he knew that any dream with a lingering effect was just plain bad news. Magic was nearly always involved in some way, and as powerful and insidious as the forget spell had been, he couldn't help but suspect the same source now.

It should be impossible, he knew. At this distance, the curse could not work without affecting other people: the innkeeper, her family and staff, for instance. Unless, he thought, he and Virginia had somehow already become targets. The thought chilled him, but he didn't consider turning back. If they were targets, it was already a fact. They might at least find what they were looking for. He just hoped he was mistaken.

The present road conditions, however, did nothing to reassure him. Although he could detect no sign of recent previous passage ahead of them, their going was just too easy: he knew instinctively that it should have been much more overgrown. As it was, he never had to leave the driver's seat, where he'd been sitting with Virginia beside him since they'd parted company with their driver and footman at the cutoff to the ruin.

The two men had each taken one of the four horses, leaving two to pull the coach the rest of the way. Wolf had told them how to get to the next inn, where they would wait for the couple's return. He'd asked them to wait a full week before returning to King Wendell with the news that they were lost, but wondered if they'd really last that long. Certainly, he'd known better than to try and convince them to accompany him to the ruin. The curse was said to only affect anyone who entered the main building, but he knew that wouldn't satisfy the men. He and Virginia would only end up stranded there if the men got too frightened and made off with their transportation during the night.

"How much farther is it?" Virginia asked suddenly.

He transferred the reins to one hand and put his arm around her.

"Not too," he said. "We should be getting there pretty soon. Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said quickly, then amended it to, "Well, I'm cold."

He hugged her tighter and rubbed her arm.

"Why do you keep asking me if I'm all right?" she demanded.

He was saved from having to answer by the sudden sight of their destination. He gestured to it and she stared, transfixed.

"What do you think?" he asked her after they had unharnessed the horses and built a fire in one of the great hearths that stood at each end of the stablehouse.

It took her a moment to answer.

"I don't know," she said. "It's kind of creepy, but sad too, in a way. I guess it's just because I can imagine what it must have looked like before this happened to it. It must have been beautiful." She looked at him ruefully. "Sorry," she added then in her best matter-of-fact voice. "Being pregnant must be making me melodramatic. It's just an old building. Is what's left structurally sound?"

"That depends what form the curse takes," he replied absently, privately ruminating over her initial reaction. She would be used to dismissing such impressions, with the lack of magic in her world. He, on the other hand, would be foolish to ignore them. She was the daughter of a powerful witch, and that sort of power was often inherited. Not always, it was true, but since the time they'd first met, he'd seen her react to places her mother had long frequented, as if she had a special ability to sense . . . what was it called again? Cripes, he couldn't think of the word! Fretfully, he scratched his temple and stared into the fire. _Residue!_ he thought. _That's it! She has a special ability to sense residue._

"Wolf?" he suddenly heard her ask.

"Hmm?"

"I asked you what exactly the curse is supposed to do."

"Oh!" he said, chagrined that he hadn't heard her the first time. "Well, there are a lot of different things said about it, but probably most of them are exaggerations based on people's fear. It's pretty much agreed, though, that it has no effect unless you go inside."

"How are we going to find anything without going inside?" she asked reasonably.

"Well . . . um . . . there are some versions of the curse which say that it only affects those who remain inside after dark . . ."

"Okay . . ."

"They're probably true," he hastened to add.

"Yes, fine," she said. "But suppose we get cursed. What happens to us? I mean, what exactly is the curse supposed to do?"

"I don't know. Something bad."

"Then how can you be sure there really is a curse?" she wanted to know.

"There just is."

She sighed.

"Okay," she said, obviously humoring him, "Fine. Look, it's one o'clock now. If we make sure we're out of the building by four thirty at the latest, we should be fine. That gives us three and a half hours to start looking."

"You want to start right now?"

"I don't want to sit around here thinking about it," she replied.

Nevertheless, at the door she hesitated, staring at the huge mound of rubble heaped near what had been the southwestern corner of the building.

"It looks like a bomb went off in it," she commented. He had to agree that it certainly didn't appear to have merely failed with age. The remaining portions of the palace were still somewhat intact.

As she turned back to the door, her hand suddenly went to the baby. That simple gesture gave him second thoughts. _What am I doing?_ he wondered. _What kind of father am I anyway?_ But it was too late to turn back. Virginia had gone inside.

A grey landscape spread out before them, the thick layer of dust covering all like newfallen dingy snow, lit by the winter light filtering in through the high window overhead. Virginia had stopped to stare at it, her posture tense and wary.

"What is it?" he asked her. His own voice sounded perfectly normal to him; he didn't know why, but he had expected the sound of it to be somehow absorbed by their surroundings.

Virginia shook her head distractedly.

"I don't know," she said. "Is someone else here? Can you smell anything?"

He realized at once that that was what was the matter. There was no scent of anything inside the building, not even of the dust, which he could plainly see. He told her so.

She gave him a look which told him she didn't like that any more than he did.

"Well, there aren't any tracks," she observed.

"Not that we can see," he informed her. "But I don't think this dust is natural either. There hasn't been any glass in these windows for a long time, but it's completely undisturbed, as if the air were perfectly still." He pointed to a pile of dead leaves laying in a corner. "Those would have made some mark in the dust when they blew in, but there is none."

"Great," she said grimly. "Well, I guess we'd better get started. If we're methodical about searching, hopefully we won't miss anything."

She started into the large room to their right, but then stopped and stared at the passage that branched off to the left at the base of the great staircase. Wolf swallowed. That passage was calling him, too.

The hole in the wall behind the massive upright chest gaped at them menacingly.

"Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly," quoted Virginia.

Wolf winced and whined, wishing she hadn't said that. Everything was bad enough already without being reminded of that story, no matter how appropriate the reference was.

"Can we find something to wedge between this chest and the wall?" she asked. "You know, to make sure it stays open?"

"Well, sure," he told her, "But couldn't whoever or whatever wants to close it just move what we put there our of their way?" He didn't add that they might only succeed in blocking their own way to a quick escape.

She regarded him with mock disgust.

"Why do you always have to be so logical about it?" she asked.

When they had lit their lanterns, he took her by the hand and stepped through. They found themselves on a dank stone staircase that spiraled up and down into darkness. The same feeling that had brought them both to that room now invited them to go down. Wolf took a deep breath and, squeezing Virginia's hand, began the descent.

"Is this another magic mirror?" Virginia asked when they'd reached the room beside the cave-in.

It was propped up against the far wall, so that it faced the door, reflecting their images as they entered the room, a full-length rectangle about the same size and weight as the traveling mirror, but with a frame carved with an ivy vine instead.

"I imagine so," he told her. There was a chance it wasn't, of course, but he didn't think it very likely.

"I wonder what it does," she said.

"Best not to find out," he advised. He noticed then what made it stand out: It was the only thing in the room not covered with the ubiquitous dust. That discovery gave him even a worse feeling about it than he already had. "Let's stay away from it," he suggested.

Virginia, however, had other ideas.

"Could there be something behind it?" she asked.

He wanted to just say _no_ - and he almost did - but he realized then that she was right. The pull of attraction he felt was not to the magic of the mirror (if it had any) but to something behind it. He set his lantern down and, trying not to touch anything on its frame, carefully slid the glass over out of the way. A short door, such as the kind used for attic access in a small cottage, was revealed behind it. He glanced back at Virginia. Then, gritting his teeth, he opened it.

A narrow, dust-free staircase led down along the outside wall of the room. It was wide enough for only one person, and although the ceiling was as low at the start as the door that led onto it, it remained at a level height, so that near the bottom, Wolf could stand. But what he found when he got there made him stop abruptly in the doorway.

"What?" asked Virginia from behind him.

Reluctantly, he entered the room so she could see.

It was a sitting room, complete with a fireplace with carved mantel, and curtained windows on the other three walls. Only, instead of windowpanes, - they were far below the surface of the ground by now - mirrors cast their own flickering reflections back at them. The room was furnished quite luxuriously in a style Wolf didn't recognize, though it blended perfectly with the natural ornamentation: Living stalagmites, stalactites, and columns, somehow placed in perfect positions to act as natural partitions and compliment the living space without getting in the way. And despite their moist surfaces, the room was not at all damp, though no fire crackled in the grate. Oddest of all, the place seemed untouched by the passage of time.

Virginia walked out into the middle of it, the same look on her face he'd first seen when she'd been detecting the presence of her mother during their adventure. He walked over and put his arm around her. She shook her head to clear it, then looked at him.

"Sorry," she said. "I just had a feeling that this place was so . . . sad. Like someone waiting for someone to come home and they didn't. No, that's not quite right. Like it had just been so long it had given up all hope." She laughed, suddenly embarrassed. "Boy, that sounded stupid," she said.

"No, it didn't," he told her. He meant it, too, but she merely glanced at him as if he were humoring her, then picked something up off a table.

"Wait!" he exclaimed. "You shouldn't touch anything!"

"Too late," she replied, holding out her discovery and biting her lip. "What do you think of this?"

It was a signet ring, with the crest carved into a clear green gemstone, not cast in metal as was the common practice. The motif was the same as a bas-relief carving over the fireplace: a dragon with outspread wings, wrapped around a sword and holding a shield.

"Do you think it's an emerald?" she asked.

"Probably," he surmised. "Don't put it on."

"I'm not going to," she replied as if she'd never had any intention of it. He was glad to hear it. His memory of her reaction to the invisibility shoes hadn't dimmed any. "Why do you think it's here?" she asked.

As if to answer her question, a beam of light suddenly shot out from the ring's stone. Virginia shrieked and dropped it. The light vanished and it rolled harmlessly against a nearby pillar.

"What was that?" she asked, her voice shaking.

He bent to retrieve the ring.

"Wolf!" she exclaimed.

He ignored her entreaty and held the ring up in approximately the same position. Nothing happened. He moved it slightly to the side and the beam appeared again.

"I think it's just picking up the light from the lantern," he announced.

"How can it? The lantern is behind you."

"From the mirror," he explained. "No. From all three mirrors. Look."

He gestured to where the focused beam came to rest: On the dragon's shield of the fireplace carving.

"You think that means anything?" she asked.

He shrugged and walked over to the fireplace. The carving looked solid, as if it were all of one piece. Gingerly, he put a finger to the shield . . . and the entire bas-relief crumbled at the touch, turning to dust and gravel. Behind it was a shallow cavity. The corner of an envelope stuck out of the remains of ruined carving, like the arm of a drowning man. He fished it out and looked at it.

The room swam before him, then steadied. He blinked, but there seemed to be no difference in anything around him. Virginia was still staring at the envelope he held, her expression curious.

"How long have we been here?" he suddenly wondered.

"It can't have been that long," she commented, and looked at her watch. Her cry of dismay confirmed his worst fears. "It's going crazy," she elaborated. "The numbers all keep changing and they don't make any sense!"

He didn't waste time replying to her, just took her by the arm and propelled her up the stairs. She didn't need any more encouragement. They were both winded by the time they reached the main door to the palace, but it was already too late: The sky was completely dark. Wolf hoped the stories about the curse that he'd heard were exaggerations - it was possible, after all - but when he at last made it outside, what he saw froze his heart: Rising ghostly white against the night sky was the old tower that had long ago crumbled into a mound of rubble. They were cursed.

* * *

Virginia stared at the tower in amazement. _How is that possible?_ she wondered. _It was rubble!_ Any speculations she might have had were cut short by the sound of her husband whining loudly between moans next to her, however. 

"What is it?" she asked him. "What's the matter? Do you know something about this?"

"We're cursed!" she finally understood him saying.

_Great,_ she thought, resigned. But she also suspected he knew more about this curse stuff than he'd told her.

"Wolf, does that tower have something do with it? With the curse?"

"Oh, Virginia, I'm so sorry . . ." he wailed.

"Wolf!" She shook him. "What do you know about this?"

"Oh, I knew this was a bad idea for us to come here!" he went on. "I knew it! Why didn't I listen to myself? Why . . ."

"WOLF!" she shouted. What was the matter with him? Couldn't he hear her, she wondered? Just being around the ghost tower was making the hair on her neck stand up. Wolf's reaction was scaring her even more. "Stop it!" she cried. He needed to tell her what he knew about the curse. She couldn't stand not knowing what might happen.

"And why did I have to bring my succulently sweet wife along?" he queried himself. "Oh, I'm so bad, so bad . . ."

His words touched a nerve.

"Well I'm sorry you don't want me around!" she cried.

"A wolf always follows his instincts, and did I do that?" he asked rhetorically. "No!"

He was totally ignoring her, she realized, tears stinging her eyes. It was as if she weren't even there. As if they'd turned into someone's parents, she thought bitterly, then choked. _Well aren't we?_ she wondered. It occurred to her then what a real wolf's instincts would inevitably be.

"You're not interested now that I'm pregnant, are you?" she demanded to know. "You're getting a child; that's what you really cared about."

"And the cub too!" he went on. "Oh, cripes, what am I going to do? I don't deserve to be a father after what I've done, putting my own cub in danger, no sirree!"

Virginia burst into tears.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed. That dream she'd had was what had first started her to realizing it. Before that they'd been on their honeymoon and he'd managed to force himself to make love to her. But that was before she'd started to 'show' at all. Her body hadn't looked any different then. Now she looked shapeless and undesirable. Last night at the inn he finally hadn't been able to pretend anymore. And it was only going to get worse!

"Oh, this is awful, Virginia!" he wailed on, his own voice choking. "I knew I never deserved to live happily ever after!"

Her anger flared.

"Well I'm sorry!" she shouted at him. "It's not like I have any control over it! I'm going to get big and huge and . . . and_FAT!!!_ So I'm sorry you have to be burdened with looking at me!"

"I've been bad . . ." he wailed on. "I've done such bad things . . ."

"Well you should have thought about that to begin with!" she went on, choking on the words. "I didn't get pregnant by myself!"

"Oh, cripes . . ." he moaned, and threw himself on the ground, sobbing.

A small part of Virginia's brain told her that she was being ridiculous, that of course Wolf loved her and wanted the baby, and that his present behavior was suspiciously strange. But she just hurt so badly she could hardly stand it. Her old fear of abandonment had returned with a vengeance and now it was even worse because, in loving Wolf, she'd lost all the protection she'd built up over the years to shut it out. She could already envision him gone; her life bereft of him, alone and lonely; _such emptiness . . ._

What emptiness, the tiny remaining rational part of her asked? It hadn't happened yet . . . _but it would!_ . . . No! It wasn't her, it wasn't happening! What was going on? There was a curse . . .

_Cursed! Yes! She would be cursed to live her life without him! How could she live, knowing that?_

Those were not her thoughts. In all her years of loneliness and wasted existence, she had never once considered suicide; knew she wouldn't even now if the worst happened and, God forbid, something happened to Wolf. Would she?

_It will be lonely, so lonely . . . all I loved . . . gone . . ._ The overwhelming sense of pain and loss threatened to engulf her. She could barely breathe. Maybe it would be better if she died with him, she thought. She wasn't that old, only twenty-one. It would be years, eons, until she died a natural death. How could she go on, with no one? How could she live with _the emptiness, it hurt so badly . . ._

No. That wasn't true. Even if he were gone, she'd have the baby. What was she thinking? She'd never leave the baby; she couldn't, no matter what. It was hers and she loved it and she would_ never_ do that, ever!

With that realization, something seemed to snap loose inside her heart. She understood that she'd been afraid, terrified of doing just that - leaving her child as she had been left - but she also knew now those fears were groundless. She trembled and her tears continued to fall, but the tightness in her chest had abated, and with it the cloak of superimposed emotions, though she could feel them still, around the outer edge of her soul, hovering.

She took a deep breath.

_I need to look at that tower,_ she thought. But the thought brought with it an old fear dredged up by the powerful force still surrounding her: At the moment, she was still facing Wolf, crying and writhing on the ground in misery. She'd have to turn her head to see the tower. Suppose he was gone when she looked back?

_No, that's silly,_ she told herself, but her fear held her paralyzed. _This is crazy!_ she thought, but it did no good. _All right then, what worked before?_ She'd thought about the baby. _Yes!_ She knew her own child would never leave her; she remembered how she'd felt about her own mother, even knowing everything she'd done. Her baby would love her always. She put a hand on the small bulge in her stomach. Then, with a supreme act of will, she jerked her head around to look at what the presence didn't want her to see.

_Emptiness . . . pain . . . longing . . . hurt . . . anger . . . fury . . ._poured from the dark ghostly windows. The intensity of emotion nearly overwhelmed her, but she held on tight to that little corner of reality - the piece of herself that she'd just discovered that wanted and needed to become a mother. _That's the curse,_ she realized. _It takes you over. Wolf . . ._

It was easier to look back towards him than it had been to look away, though not much. She was too afraid he'd really be gone. _No, that's not right,_ she thought. _It just wants me to be afraid._

He was, of course, still there, as she'd rationally known he would be. And now she could see his reaction not as a response to her presence, but for what it was: the effect of the curse upon him.

_But what can I do?_ she wondered. _I don't know how to break a curse! I'm resisting it a little but it's not like it's gone! _Still, she knew she had to do something; she couldn't just stand there and watch Wolf suffer. If she could resist it a bit on her own - with the baby's help, she smiled to herself - maybe she could help Wolf resist it. Maybe that would make it a little easier on both of them.

Her feet felt like lead weights as she walked to him; it seemed to take forever. She crouched down beside him, her heart wrenching at his agony. But what should she do? Instinctively she reached out to touch his face, but stopped short. _What if he recoils at my touch?_ she wondered. _What if he really does find my pregnant body repulsive?_ The tightness clutched at her chest again and she felt lumpy and enormous. Some men were like that, she knew. She'd heard about them somewhere . . . from somebody . . . once.

_Some men?_ she demanded of herself. _What does that have to do with Wolf?_ But the feeling refused to leave; it just stayed there like a nagging itch. Even telling herself she knew it was the curse doing it did no good. Finally she resorted to what had worked for her before. _It's his baby too, _she reasoned. _He'll love it no matter what he thinks of me._

She'd intended to place his hand on her stomach, though she knew she wasn't far enough along to feel any movement herself, much less have it felt by others, but she figured it might symbolically help him to battle the artificial loneliness. Plus, she reasoned, it was always possible he could sense something about it that she couldn't. During the last full moon, he'd told her he could hear the baby moving around, for instance. But he'd been wringing his hands so energetically that she had a hard time trying to get one away from him and when she finally wrestled him for possession, she ended up with her face only inches from his.

He still couldn't see her - his eyes, red from the continuous crying, were focused on some horrible imaginary event. His face was twisted in a grimace of emotional torment, the creases at the corners of his eyes black in the dim light, his jaw set, his lips slightly parted. Without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him.

The loneliness, which had been screaming at her even then that he would turn away in disgust, vanished in a hiss of white noise. Virginia's ears popped. She felt Wolf jerk beneath her hands.

"Virginia!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms around her and embracing her tightly."Oh, Virginia!"

She hugged him back, letting the relief wash over her, exhausted. He sat holding her possessively in his lap, rocking himself back and forth, until long after she fell asleep.

The ghostly tower had vanished.

_Upon a hill in the world of old  
Sleeps a story that remains untold;  
Sit back, you must learn this lesson well -  
Of a kingdom cursed by a great spell... _

_Imagine a land, fair and serene  
Where lived the dryads, gentle has been;  
But the peace there was to end quite soon  
Come Midwinter's Eve, full of the moon. _

_Of the kingdom that once had thrived  
In the end, not a creature survived;  
The land turned barren, desolate, dry,  
Out of the dark came a piercing cry._

_The Basquel Queen, near her time to end -  
A broken heart that would never mend -  
By her hand, seeing her love's great pain,  
Determined to save what did remain.  
_  
_In whispered voice, with her final breath  
The grim promise she sealed with her death -  
She gathered her strength, her eyes now closed  
And wove these last words, so full of woe: _

_"My love, my hate with this one last spell  
I curse your people and hide them well;  
And I promise you with all my heart  
But a child twixt two may break apart." _

"It's not all there," said Tony.

"What?" asked Wendell.

"I said it's not all there. Look." He unfolded the by now dog-eared scrap of paper he'd copied the fragments of the prophecy onto that they'd found in the king's records room, and slapped it down onto the table next to Wolf's discovery. "There are words at the end of this one that aren't in that. See? It says _'one last spell'_ right there on both copies." He pointed. "Then it also says_'promise'_ and _'my heart'_ on the same line, there, on both of them. But on the one I made, it has more words after those that don't appear on this. See? It says _'kingdom fell' . . . 'hand' . . . 'his life' . . ._ And then farther down it says _'must', 'peace', _and_'Ere'._ Part of this is missing!"

"Well I don't see what we can do about it," declared Wendell a bit petulantly. "The representative from the Wizard's Council should be here at any moment. The fact that they've agreed to interact in world affairs regarding this matter at all is nothing short of amazing. It's highly unlikely they'd agree to reschedule, and I know their representative is not going to hang about while we search up the missing part."

"And we're not going back there anyway!" Wolf put in. "We barely made it out as it is. If it weren't for my lovely Virginia, we'd never have broken the curse."

"Well, you did break it," Tony pointed out.

"Dad!" Virginia exclaimed.

"It's a curse, Tony, it's not the measles," his son-in-law informed him. "Just because you get over it once doesn't mean it can't strike you again."

"Yeah, Dad," added his daughter. "Go break another mirror and see what happens."

"Oh," he said, chagrined. Somehow he hadn't thought of the mirror incident as being the same sort of curse, but he supposed it was. _A curse is a curse is a curse?_ he thought.

At that moment, the butler entered and announced the arrival of the visiting wizard. He straightened up, expecting to see a figure that resembled his vision of Merlin - a skinny old man with a waist-length grey beard, wearing long rune-covered robes and a conical hat, possibly carrying a staff with an orb set into it. Instead he was positively dumbfounded to discover that the wizard was a rather short blonde woman of about his own age, wearing one of those forties-style dresses he'd seen at Kissingtown and carrying a Siamese cat on her shoulder like a baby. She ignored him utterly and walked up to the king.

"Your highness," she said with a slight incline of her head.

Wendell nodded back.

"Milady," he said in return, "We're honored that you have consented to help us."

"I haven't consented to anything yet," she reminded him. "I just want to make that clear. I only said I'd look at it."

"Yes, of course," purred the king. "Would you prefer to see it right away or have someone show you to your chamber . . . ?"

"I'd like to get started right away," she said briskly, "But I'm not ready to look at the document quite yet. Where are the ones who discovered it? I'd like to meet them."

"I guess that's us," Virginia piped up.

The woman . . . wizard . . . wizard-woman's eyes snapped to his daughter.

"And you are . . ?" she prompted.

"Virginia," she said, as Wendell rushed into the breach.

"My step-sister," he clarified.

The wizard-woman's eyes widened in mild interest as she looked from Virginia to the king and back again. Wendell went on, "And this is her husband, Wolf. They discovered it together."

The mild interest deepened into surprise, and what looked to Tony a bit like dismay.

She stared at Wolf curiously a moment, then hefted the cat and made a gesture with her hand. For a moment, Tony wondered if she'd cast some sort of spell, but Wolf merely held his hands out to her, palm up, for inspection. She peered down at them, then looked back up at him, her eyes narrowed, considering. He dropped his hands to his sides, putting one around Virginia.

"You two are the same Virginia and Wolf who helped save the Nine Kingdoms?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Wendell before the couple could speak for themselves.

"Hmmm . . . I can see there are a lot more variables to that particular equation than anyone suspected," she muttered cryptically, giving his son-in-law a significant look. "But no matter. It does put to rest the matter of authenticity."

Tony'd finally had enough. There was something about her manner that grated on his nerves in the first place, and her suggestion that his daughter might be a liar only made it worse.

"Excuse me," he said, "But if we're going to talk about authenticity here, how about you? How do we know you're really a wizard? You've come in here demanding to know who everyone is, but who are you?"

"Antony!" cried Wendell, aghast.

"Dad," his daughter warned him.

Wolf, strangely, said nothing.

The wizard-woman fastened her attention on Tony. He swallowed, realizing only then what he had just asked for. He could imagine what was coming: _Okay, you want proof that I'm a wizard? Poof, you're a frog. Believe me now?_

She smiled.

"You're quite right," she agreed. Her voice was quite pleasant. "I hadn't thought of that, but that is a possibility, so far as all of you know. Except one."

She turned to Wolf.

"Well?" she asked. "Will you vouch for me then? It would avoid an otherwise rather unnecessary display."

Wolf fidgeted uncomfortably as Virginia turned to look at him curiously.

"Do you know each other?" Tony asked.

"Oh," said the wizard-woman, as if she realized her mistake. "No. Not as such. Only in the sense that one wizard knows another."

Tony's mouth fell open. So did everyone else's.

"What?" he and Virginia cried at the same time.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded. Tony was too dumbfounded to say anything else.

Wolf cowered like a trapped animal.

"No!" he insisted. "I'm not! Really!"

Tony's eyes narrowed. He couldn't recall ever seeing Wolf do even the most minor magic, though he did know quite a bit about it. But that could easily be explained by living around here, he thought. He regarded the woman suspiciously.

"It was my mistake," she acknowledged. "He's quite right; he bears nothing but an apprentice's mark. I didn't realize that none of you were aware of it. Most of those who leave us bore their associates to tears about the experience. However, he should still be able to verify my credentials."

"An apprentice?" Virginia asked in stunned amusement.

"Well . . . " her husband whined.

Tony could see that this was going nowhere fast. The discussion was about to degenerate into a long, involved narrative of Wolf's past history. Not that his daughter didn't deserve to hear it, he thought, but it had waited this long, so it could surely wait a bit longer. Right now they had more important things to talk about, while the wizard was here. If she really was a wizard, he amended. He still wasn't fully convinced of it.

"What are you talking about, a mark?" he asked her. "What kind of mark?"

She sighed.

"When the apprentice class first arrives at the Council school, they're tested. Those with sufficient ability to progress are marked, so that the Council can track the usage of their skill," she explained. "It's not a visible symbol; only an individual with the proper ability and training can see it. As higher levels are reached - journeyman on up to full wizard, the marks are altered to reflect the person's growing ability.

"But the training to see them - all of them - is a part of the initial testing process, so that no one is required to bear, for even a short period of time, a mark they can't see for themselves. Since Wolf has such a mark himself, I know he is able to see mine."

The cat yawned and stretched away from her, then butted its head beneath her chin. She nuzzled it back and scratched its ear. Her speech finished, she acted once again as if Tony weren't there.

He glanced over at Wolf, who was still trying to explain to Virginia why he'd never bothered to tell her what kind of school he'd attended. His son-in-law looked up and, seeing Tony looking at him, said, "She is a wizard, Tony. A necromancer."

Wendell, who up until this point had probably been too stunned to speak, Tony thought, frowned in disapproval at the remark. She noticed it immediately.

"It's not what you think it is," she told him. "Necromancy is essentially a field of divination. Prophecies, especially, are in its domain, as they are descriptions made by the dead of delayed events which affect the living. Those who would raise the dead to be their slaves are not true necromancers, and they are certainly outside the limitations of the Council."

"_Zombies?"_ asked Tony, aghast. "You mean that's really possible?"

"Possible, yes," she replied. "Ethical, no. That's what the Council is essentially for, to ensure the ethical use of magical ability."

"But if that's true, then . . ." he wanted to ask how Christine could have gotten so out of control, but decided after he'd spoken that it might be better not said in front of Virginia. The necromancer understood him anyway, though.

"Not all people who have the ability have been trained in the Council schools. Those who are self-taught and do not bear the marks are known as witches. Whether they use their powers ethically or not is entirely up to the individual. Without the marks, the Council has no means of recourse," she explained. "Now, before we become embroiled in a detailed discussion of ethics - or someone's personal history" - she said pointedly to Virginia and Wolf - "Shall we get to work on this prophecy you've discovered?"

Her manner was that of a teacher trying to keep her class on task. Tony realized only then that that was probably what she was: a teacher of magic, yes, but still a teacher.

"Yes, Ms. Wizardess," he said somewhat sourly, under his breath.

"There is no such word as wizardess," she lectured him. "I'm a wizard. The term is gender-neutral. But," she relented in a less formal voice, "It would be a lot easier if you would all just call me Samantha."

After Wolf and Virginia had related their tale of what had happened during their journey, interrupted frequently by Samantha to ask questions, she'd examined both the draft Wolf had found in the underground room and the copy Tony had made of the fragment in Wendell's records room. By then only Tony was left in the room, as she had promised to let Wendell know as soon as she'd come to a decision about it. Virginia and Wolf had said they'd wait until then to find out as well.

"You're quite right," she agreed. "Part of this is missing." She tapped her fingers impatiently on the table. "Strange."

"What's strange?" asked Tony, trying not to get a mouthful of cat fur in the process. When she'd begun to study the written 'documents,' as she called them, she'd promptly handed the animal to him. He'd been surprised, wondering if it was her familiar, but she'd only scoffed at the notion, saying something about the humane treatment of animals - and informed him that no, Lucent was only her sweetie-pie. The endearment had sounded so incongruous coming from the lips of this otherwise no-nonsense woman that he'd had a hard time not laughing at it. But he hadn't dared to even chuckle because Lucent was staring at him: a hard, considered stare that said he'd been evaluated thoroughly and found lacking. Apparently, though, not too lacking because at the moment the cat was nestled tightly against his cheek, purring loudly and vigorously.

"Well," she said, answering his question, "It's in such good condition - and it doesn't look torn." She bit her lip. "Considering all the other magic associated with it - the forget spell and the curse - I'd have to say the omission is deliberate. Though I can't think why. It's far easier to make the entire thing inaccessible to anyone than it is to hide only a part."

"Maybe it wants to send us on a wild goose chase?" Tony asked.

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "Though we could do that easily enough ourselves with the wrong interpretation. That isn't the only possibility here, though. There could very well be a third party involved."

"A third party?" he asked. "You mean the person or people who started the curse and the prophecy and the forget spell and all that, us, and someone else trying to throw a wrench into the works?"

"No," she told him. "I was thinking more along the lines of whoever wrote the prophecy. That wouldn't have come from the same source as everything else. If you're going to all the trouble to cast a forget spell and a curse to keep people from knowing something, you're hardly likely to write up a prophecy to remind them about it. If whoever it was had sufficient power, they could have initiated some counter-measure for the original spell."

"A counter-measure?" he asked, remembering something Christine had told him in his dream. "Would this have anything to do with something called Guardians?"

* * *

Virginia took the seat that had been provided for her in the room where the visiting wizard had been studying the prophecy she and Wolf had found. Wolf sat down next to her, and Wendell and Rupert were also present, as was her father, who apparently had never left in the first place. They were about to hear the conclusions the wizard had reached about what the poem meant, or so it had been announced. 

Her mind really wasn't on the impending revelation, however. She still couldn't understand why Wolf hadn't told her he'd gone to wizard's school. She wasn't really mad about it anymore – he'd made those big puppy-dog eyes at her and she couldn't have stayed angry if she'd wanted to – but that didn't mean she understood._True, it isn't in the same category as somehow forgetting to tell me his name,_ she thought, trying to be fair, _but still . . ._

Her musings were cut abruptly cut short by the wizard's - _Samantha's,_ she reminded herself - standing up and clearing her throat to begin her lecture.

"I've had copies of the document drawn up so you can all have one," she began, depositing an insulted-looking Lucent on the table in front of her and picking up a small stack of papers. Lucent stretched himself as she passed the copies of the poem around to everyone, then promptly plopped himself down on top of the original, still lying on the desk for Samantha's reference. He blinked languidly.

"Oh, Lucent, you'll have to move," she told him sweetly. "You're in the way."

"Ungooow!" replied Lucent in a deep, booming voice. He didn't budge.

She put her hand down to move him herself. He opened his mouth and rested his teeth on her skin, looking up at her speculatively.

"Oh, all right," she conceded. "I think I can do it from memory. Someone interrupt me if I skip a stanza."

She stood up straight and began what Virginia thought of as her 'lecture mode':

"First of all, I'd like to state that because the document is not intact - the last part of it is obviously missing - the interpretation I have made is not necessarily an accurate one. Please keep that in mind.

"Now, the first stanza appears to be nothing much more than an introduction. The entreaty on the third line: _Sit back, you must learn this lesson well,_ leaves little doubt but that this is the genuine beginning of the document. Apart from that, it gives us very scant information – merely that the story has lain dormant – which was due to the forget spell – and that the remainder of the document will concern a kingdom that has been cursed.

"The second stanza reveals a bit more: That the cursed kingdom either was that of the dryads or occupied the same territory, that the curse ended an era of peace, and that it was cast on a full moon at Midwinter. Now for those of you who don't know, an occasion of the full moon coinciding with Midwinter's Eve is one of the most auspicious for the casting of spells. Any spell cast at that time will have more power to it than it otherwise would. What isn't clear from this is whether this curse is the one you both experienced or a different one altogether."

Virginia sighed. She was already getting bored and knew she'd have difficulty staying awake for the full lecture, but she didn't dare fall asleep. She didn't want to insult the woman and she certainly didn't want to appear not to care what the whole thing meant. It didn't really help that Wolf was listening with rapt attention.

_Well,_ thought Virginia sourly, _he's not one of 'those of you who don't know' is he?_ She nearly added sarcastically that it might have been nice if he'd bothered to share his magical knowledge with her, but she realized immediately that he actually had: He'd been a veritable fountain of information on everything from the invisibility shoes to the riddling frog. He simply hadn't bothered to tell her where his information had come from. She knew she should stop dwelling on it so much, though, and tried to think of something else, but across the room, her father was listening to Samantha with at least as much interest as her husband. Mentally, she shook her head, wondering how he could be so absorbed, but then realized the real question was probably why_ wasn't_ Virginia interested in it. Obviously her mother had been, or she'd never have left in the first place. So if her parents were, why not her?

Uneasily she suddenly recalled that her grandmother hadn't been much interested in hearing the

proceedings, either. When invited, she'd declined the invitation, saying she had to use the time to select suitable material for the spring wardrobe she was having made. She was also not too happy about the wizard's cat: she thought it might irritate Roland. Roland, of course, had joined her shortly after Virginia and Wolf had returned from their honeymoon. He'd been languishing - her grandmother's word - in one of those pet hotels, where the animals each have their own television, as she had originally thought she was only going on a visit, but had decided to stay. Maybe she had more in common with Grandma than she'd ever thought. _Just what I needed to figure out now,_ she thought wryly. _At least I'll never be as inconsiderate as she can be though. I hope. I'd better not be, anyway,_ she mentally added. She could still hear the unspoken criticism in the old woman's words during her latest visit: "You know, your mother barely showed at all when she was carrying you . . ." which were completely oblivious to the fact that Virginia's feelings might be hurt by the statement. She sighed heavily, wondering then what had caused her to start thinking about all this junk in the first place.

"In conclusion," Samantha was saying, "It seems that the curse which was placed by the Basquel Queen, which is likely the one which affected Virginia and Wolf, although it has ramifications which extend far beyond that, may be lifted by a union between a ruling house of one of the original five kingdoms and the ruling house of the alternate dimension - also known as the tenth kingdom - where Virginia and Tony are from. Such a union would, of course, have to produce a child to be effective in breaking the curse."

"I don't see how that's possible," said Tony. "For one thing, there is no "King of the World" where we come from. For another, you haven't mentioned what's supposed to happen when the curse is broken. People will be able to go freely into that ruin without a problem, or what? And if that's all there is to it, why bother?"

"Obviously that's where having the remainder of the document could help us," she replied. "But as to what will happen with the breaking of the curse, it appears that your world and ours will be reunited along with the symbolic act of union between the rulers. My best suggestion is to try and find out who may have been the most likely ruler at the time and trace that individual's descendants."

"Oh, great!" Tony exclaimed. "Just how are we supposed to do that?"

"That isn't the worst of it, Antony," put in Wendell. "I happen to be the only unmarried – or unengaged – directly descended ruler from the original five kingdoms, aside from a few toddlers descended from Cinderella."

"NO!" cried Rupert, jumping to his feet. "We've straightened all this out already with the line of succession! And Riding Hood III is not married."

"She is engaged, to Prince Gunther of the Eighth Kingdom," replied Wendell. "And the line of succession question is moot, considering what is at stake here."

"Well, can't it wait for one of those toddlers to grow up?"

"I would say not," said Samantha cautiously. "Everything has suddenly started moving just recently. That points to the necessity of quickly resolving the problem. Not that there seems to be an immediate deadline, but waiting an entire generation is out of the question."

"I do want one thing understood, however," declared Wendell in a grave voice, "Whoever she is, she must be completely aware of what she is getting into, not only so far as this curse is concerned, but so far as I go as well; that while all the social rights and privileges of being a queen will be hers, privately the marriage will be purely for the sake of breaking the curse. After our experience, I'm well aware of the public opinion in your world of those like me. She must know and agree in advance."

"No offense, your Highness," said Tony, "But that's going to make it a whole lot more difficult."

"Actually, King Wendell is correct," Samantha told them. "Deceit in this matter is what could be deadly. So far as discovering a suitable and willing candidate, well, these things take care of themselves when the time is right."

Virginia wasn't certain, but it seemed that Samantha gave her father a significant look with her last statement.

"Well, I don't see how we're ever going to even find any candidate!" she put in. "We wouldn't even know where to start looking!"

"Oh, that's not true, Virginia," declared her husband, "That huge library in New York City is bound to have the answer!"

She closed her eyes, exasperated. Why hadn't she seen that coming, she wondered? She'd taken him into the library once and almost never gotten him out.

"Yes, Wolf," she said. "But what, exactly, is the question?"

"That is what we need to specifically define," Samantha agreed. But she'd barely stopped speaking when a servant entered.

"The Princess Gwendolyn," he intoned.

"Oh, no," muttered Wendell.

"Oh, please, not now," muttered Rupert.

The reactions of the two piqued Virginia's curiosity more than the servant's could ever have done, even had he announced her as 'Princess Gwendolyn, the Blue Fairy.' But that was exactly how she struck Virginia at first glance: She had the blue mop of hair and pale skin common to Eighth Kingdomers, in addition to a pair of iridescent blue fairy wings. They fluttered nervously as she entered the room.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had visitors," she said in a light voice, apparently to Wendell, then looked down at the floor as she turned away.

"No, that's quite all right, Gwendolyn," Wendell told her, completely at odds with his initial reaction. Virginia raised an eyebrow and looked up at her husband, but Wolf only shrugged.

"Please come in," Wendell continued. "I know you wouldn't have come if it weren't important."

Virginia wondered if his words might be some kind of threat - telling the ice princess that her business had _better_ be important. But if they were, she seemed not to notice.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "I . . ." she glanced uncomfortably around the room, obviously wondering if what she had to say could be said in front of all these strangers.

"It's all right," Wendell assured her. "This is Samantha of the Wizard Council, and the rest of these people are my advisors."

She stared in surprise for a moment at Samantha, but gave the rest of them only a cursory glance. Virginia wondered exactly why he'd chosen to introduce them that way instead of individually - it wasn't as if there were hundreds of them - but she forgot about it as soon as Gwendolyn started speaking.

"I suppose it might be best to have a wizard hear this," the princess said almost to herself. "I've wondered if some magic might be involved. Anyway, why I've come: It's about my brother Gunther's behavior. You know he's engaged to Riding Hood III?"

Wendell nodded.

"Well, that has essentially been understood since they were children . . ." she flushed, but continued, "Although the formal agreement between the two of them and the particulars have only recently been ironed out. But it's only been . . . I'd say within the last three weeks that he's suddenly started on an anti-wolf campaign." She bit her lip and looked almost sheepishly at Wendell.

Virginia felt Wolf stiffen and squeezed his hand. He squeezed it back and seemed to relax a little.

"Go on," Wendell prompted.

"Well, it just isn't natural," she said. "I mean, it's not that he's always had any great love for wolfs, but it's never been obvious - in fact, a year ago I'd have said he had no opinion about them one way or the other. But now he's determined to, well, as he says, exterminate them completely."

Virginia squeezed Wolf's hand as hard as she could. She could almost feel him shouting in protest, but he stayed quiet. He was so tense, however, she wondered that Gwendolyn didn't notice, but she didn't.

"Everyone thinks, of course, that this is just because of his betrothal to Riding Hood. But I don't. It's too much! He wouldn't have had to do anything but not stand in her way, and I know this isn't anything she asked him to do. In fact, I don't believe she's even written him in over two months."

"Perhaps that is why . . .?" suggested Wendell.

"No, that is what everyone thinks, but the truth is, he hasn't written her, either. It's not as if he has some great passion for her. But he is passionate about eradicating wolfs - suddenly. And there's something else. It started right after this mysterious storyteller left. I've wondered if he had something to do with it - if he might have been a witch who put a spell on my brother - but I can't get anyone to even listen to the idea. And I know, Wendell, that all this is none of your affair, except that he's threatened you directly. He's said that the first thing that needs to be done is to get rid of your infernal wolf pardon."

She bit her lip nerviously, waiting for a reaction as if she expected a physical blow, but Wendell said nothing.

"Tell me about this mysterious storyteller," said Samantha.

"Well there isn't much to tell. He arrived maybe a month ago and stayed for about a week. He was very good at storytelling - I heard him myself - and that's why he was invited into the castle. My brother seemed to take to him, though maybe it was the other way around, I don't know. There was nothing mysterious about his leave-taking; he said that he simply needed to move on."

"Did you speak to him at all?"

"Only in the most general way, to be polite. I can describe him: he was rather tall and thin, clean-shaven, but his beard seemed to grow quickly, so I wondered that he didn't just grow it out. Reddish-brown hair, green eyes." She blushed, and Virginia realized she'd found this mysterious stranger quite attractive.

"He had a very pleasant, smooth speaking voice, which of course helped him in his storytelling. The actual stories he told were mostly very sad, except this one he told that made us laugh, about a wolf who couldn't stop eating. I suppose, in a way, that one was sad too, now that I think about it. But that was the only one about wolfs, and there really wasn't anything in it that ought to have set my brother off. It's only the timing of his visit that makes me think he might have had something to do with it."

"Did you ask your brother about him at all?"

"No," she admitted. "Gunther knows I'm suspicious of his sudden hatred of wolfs. If I started asking about the storyteller, I know him - he'd take it as an attack against a friend."

"If he knows you're suspicious and he knows you've come to visit me, I assume he can draw the correct conclusions . . ." suggested Wendell.

Gwendolyn looked stricken.

"Oh, I should prefer to be forewarned," the king quickly assured her. "Has he said exactly how he plans to force me to retract the pardon?"

"He wanted to mount an army," she began, but was interrupted by an exclamation from Rupert. Gwendolyn looked in his direction, then quickly away. Rupert did the same, obviously keeping silent with an effort. Virginia realized that they had been studiously avoiding each other ever since the princess had entered.

"I assume King Gregor prevented him?" Wendell inquired mildly, apparently not noticing the friction between his paramour and the princess, though Virginia doubted he'd missed it. Their comments just before she'd entered indicated he was certainly aware of something.

"Oh, yes," Gwendolyn assured him. "But he in effect gave him carte blanche to invade you once he was married and co-ruler of the Second Kingdom. At least he told him to wait until he had his own army, but I didn't get the impression that Father would do anything to stop him then. Riding Hood might, but on that subject she could probably easily be persuaded to invade."

"I see," said Wendell. "Well, thank you for warning me. That is something I might have expected from Riding Hood's quarter, and had thought the danger past. If anything, I'd have expected Gunther to have a moderating effect on the wolf question in the Second Kingdom. This is disturbing - and quite odd, as you say."

She nodded, and an awkward silence ensued. Wendell leapt in with introductions:

"You know Rupert, of course," he said, and the two of them nodded formally to each other, their acknowledgments obviously strained. "And these are Sir Anthony and the Lady Virginia . . ."

"The heroes of the Nine Kingdoms?" she inquired.

"Yes," Wendell told her. "And this is Virginia's husband Wolf, the other one of those heros."

"Wolf?" she asked. "You mean he's . . . you're . . . a . . ."

"A half-wolf," said Wolf. "Yes."

Gwendolyn's blue eyes grew huge and round and she stared at him, aghast, her fair skin turning scarlet, an interesting contrast to the blueness of the rest of her, Virginia thought.

"I . . . oh, my," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize . . . I'd never have said . . ."

"Please don't apologize," Wolf told her. "If someone has that kind of vendetta against wolfs, I'd much rather know about it - and I try not to hold the messenger responsible for the message."

"Oh," she managed to say, "But I just . . ." and her eyes went to Virginia's stomach and stayed there.

Self-consciously, Virginia put her hand over her baby. With the gesture, Gwendolyn seemed to realize she was staring and looked pointedly away.

"It's just that I've never actually met a wolf before," she stammered. "I don't know what I was expecting. Well, I . . . oh, never mind, I'm just making it worse . . ." She stared at him curiously, her brow furrowed. "It's really odd, though."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I mean," she continued, "I guess the last thing I was expecting was for you - for a wolf - to remind me of the storyteller. Not that you look anything alike, except maybe in build, but somehow your expressions seem the same. I don't know. I can't explain it any better than that. It's stupid. I'm sorry."

To Virginia's surprise, Wolf immediately launched into a detailed description of someone, asking Gwendolyn if he matched the appearance of her storyteller.

"Yes! Exactly! Do you know who he is?"

Wolf sighed and looked over at Wendell.

"My brother, Rafe," he said.

* * *

Claire sat in her dressing room and regarded herself in the mirror. Her reflection stared back, a vision in monochromatic red, the slightly formal riding clothes hanging just so, her hair swept perfectly back to tuck beneath the gossamer demi-hood. The reflection looked queenly, ready to receive the emissary from the Eighth Kingdom who had come bearing the first of the wedding-gifts. Claire, however, was not ready and knew she never would be. 

She'd dismissed her maid for all except hair-dressing a couple of weeks ago. She knew why, though it was difficult for her to think about it directly - though she knew she must. She'd have to deal with the consequences of those reasons quite soon, and the further consequences sooner than she cared to admit. Even now she had to struggle to keep from checking the condition of her underclothing - again. Over the past month, she knew her behavior had become almost compulsive, controlled only by her strong desire to appear as if nothing were wrong.

She'd returned from her escapade that day a month and a half ago with her hands raw and blistered from her inexperience driving the team, and knew that, regardless of her protestations to the contrary, no one had really believed her story about it being her decision alone to return on her own. Since then, she'd been extra careful to act the way she always had before she'd met Rafe. Even though she'd had every intention of reversing as much anti-wolf legislation as possible, she'd known it would be unwise to do it so soon after her mysterious adventure. She'd planned to wait a month, maybe two, and then begin with some minor reversal of stricture, if she could keep her nearly constant thoughts about how many more innocent people were being victimized by the monstrous laws she, her mother and her grandmother had written in their ignorance while she waited upon the perfect moment. Then . . . this.

She looked away from the mirror and down into her lap.

_I am pregnant,_ she thought to herself deliberately. It would have been better to say it out loud, to force herself to believe it - because she knew she was still denying it was so in many ways - but she couldn't take the risk of being overheard. _I am pregnant,_ she repeated, conscious still of wanting to look again, just to make sure, just to see if the condition her mother had ironically referred to as 'the curse' hadn't finally arrived, though she knew in her mind that it hadn't - and wouldn't. As much as she wanted to believe otherwise, she _was_ pregnant, like it or not. She could even feel a small knot no bigger than an acorn low in her stomach, several inches below her navel, that hadn't been there a couple of weeks ago. It would grow larger quickly; more quickly than she could plan how to explain it - and, failing that, how she could save it. By her own law the child could not be allowed to survive its birth.

That, along with the gruesome punishment inflicted upon the 'erring' mother were some of the first things Claire had wanted to change, but now she knew she'd only be accused of rewriting the law to serve herself. It was doubtful that her lords would ask her to undergo the procedure (though a few might expect her to bear it nobly), but the baby's fate would be a foregone conclusion. Even moving the wedding forward - as a couple of Cinderella's daughters had done - would do no good in this instance. The child's nature would be obvious the moment it was born. Claire was trapped. There was no way out of her royal prison. Her baby was doomed.

A sudden rap at the door startled her.

"Your grace?" called the voice of her maid - now her hairdresser - softly, but with urgency. "It's time."

_No,_ she thought back. _Not yet, but it will be. Soon. Too soon. _

* * *

She sat quietly while the time-consuming formalities were observed by her fiancé's emissaries. The laquer-red doors to the great audience hall stood open, reminding her, whenever she glanced at them, of the dream she'd had in the ruined Basquel palace, where she'd been crowned queen of the wolfs. The irony of that dream in light of her present situation made her want to laugh out loud – to shout to those assembled, "You fools! Can't you see I'm pregnant? Don't you know I'm carrying a wolf cub right now?" But she remained silent, though she heard nothing of what they said. 

_Not that it matters,_ she thought. The formality was so old and repetitive it made no real difference if she listened to it, though she'd always tried to before, for politeness's sake. Nor was it really possible to miss the end of the salutations in this instance, as the principle messenger gave a signal and two boxes were carried in by the others: A small coffer was handed to the spokesman while a large oaken chest was place on the floor before her.

"Some small tokens of negligible value for Her Majesty from her devoted prince," he intoned, and flicked the coffer open.

Inside lay a glistening gold and ruby necklace, sparkling against the red velvet lining. He held it up for her inspection. She nodded once in approval, thinking both about how she loathed the color red and how trivial, compared to what now worried her, was the problem of always being required to wear it. The messenger, however, didn't guess at her true reaction. He briskly lay the necklace back upon its velvet cushion and withdrew a folded document from beneath the heavy red fabric.

"A deed to a summer home on the border of our respective lands, built by my lord with the pleasure of his future wife in mind," he declared.

Surprised, she reached out her hand to take it. He smiled as he handed it to her, obviously pleased with the reaction it had produced. With an air of certainty, he motioned for the chest to be opened.

Claire was busy thinking how she might be able to use the cottage to her advantage, and paid scant real attention to the surprise being unveiled, though it wasn't evident in her manner.

"Tokens of my lord's devotion to resolving the wolf problem which afflicts Her Majesty's kingdom, along with a solemn promise to not rest until _all_ the creatures have been completely exterminated. Upon his arrival, he will be bringing with him a . . ."

The contents of the trunk became suddenly apparent: she was looking at a stack of stiffened skins – wolf skins – the fur of the back, their tails still dangling. The one lying on top was quite small, from a child no more than six or seven.

The blood drained from her face and her throat closed. She turned and ran blindly from the chamber, the exclamations of delight at the gift echoing behind her like a nightmare.


	9. VIII Cloud on the Horizon

**VIII - Cloud on the Horizon**

"Oh, we have several works on that subject in here," said the librarian. She was so helpful, Wolf thought, finding him stacks and stacks of books, documents, maps, papers, and a few strange plastic slips she called fish. Obviously they weren't fish at all, but if she wanted to call them that, he didn't have a problem with it. She even showed him how to read all the microscopic information that was printed on the "fishes". It was great!

"Wolf . . ." said Virginia hesitantly. Her voice reminded him of what she'd said just before the librarian had come in with more reference material. His lovely wife was due for her doctor's appointment, and, much as he didn't want to leave the wonderful and enormous library, he didn't want to miss the appointment either. Last time, the doctor had used some fancy technological instrument that let even Virginia hear the cub's heartbeat. He'd been able to tell from her reaction that she really hadn't completely believed there was a cub growing inside her until that moment. He didn't want to miss this month's appointment, no sirree.

A few long strides brought him up to the librarian, who had plunged ahead of him down a hallway. Quickly, he explained about how, even though he was still extremely interested in anything related to Wilhelm Grimm, they had to leave for the appointment. Well, of course, she understood immediately, and he promised her he'd come back right afterwards, although Virginia had changed that to a "in a couple of days". As soon as she'd said it, he remembered they were due back in the Fourth Kingdom for the weekly progress report the next day, and that Virginia wanted to leave that evening.

He turned around and smiled at her. She smiled back. Cripes, she was so beautiful, he thought. And what had he been thinking about, with that thought he'd had about her not quite believing the cub existed until she'd heard its heartbeat? He himself still couldn't quite believe he was actually married to her; that she was really in love with him, really carrying his cub, even though he could hear both their heartbeats without assistance, even though he could plainly see the fullness of her womb now, even while she was dressed.

Oh, my. Why did he have to go and think such a thing, he wondered? But it was too late; he'd thought it now, and of course it made him think immediately of how succulent she looked while she was undressed. Not that she didn't look perfectly succulent now, of course, but . . . Oh, he did need to go outside. Why did they keep it so hot in the library, he wanted to know?

It was snowing when they finally left. Not very hard, just a gentle sifting that served to refresh the dirty slushpiles left over from the last snowfall. The sky was heavily overcast and it looked much later than it actually was, however. Twinkling lights - mostly white, but some multicolored - shone in many of the shop windows, giving the great city even more of an otherworldly appearance than it already had. They were for a holiday, Virginia had told him, and he'd thought it was the midwinter feast, but she'd said no, it was a religious holiday, and gone on to try and explain some things that he really didn't understand. Most of it sounded exactly like the midwinter feast to him; only the reason for celebrating was different.

She'd hailed them a cab. They walked to and from the library sometimes - Wolf enjoyed it a lot; he sure got to see more than he did from the cab window - but he'd already made them later than they should have been by spending such a long time in the library's archives. Virginia had taken him on the subway once, and that was enough. He'd sweated it out and they'd gotten where they were going - by now he'd forgotten where - but he never wanted to go through that experience again. Not that anything terrible had happened to them on the subway, but there was just something about the underground transit that made his hackles rise. It somehow had both the threatening presence of a voracious predator and the atmosphere of a prison. He didn't see how so many people could simply ignore that feeling, but thousands of them did, including Virginia. She'd noticed how uncomfortable it made him, though, and had never taken him on it again, although if she had wanted to, he would have ridden it regardless.

The cab stopped for a light just before the park and he looked out the window at the Plaza Hotel. He smiled. If he squinted at it, he could almost see the outlines of a royal castle of his own world. Something about the lines of the architecture was reminiscent of that, whether the elements used in the design, the proportions, or something else. And no matter what the holiday was being celebrated, presents were involved. It had taken some time, but he thought he'd come up with a nice surprise for Virginia. He hoped she liked it.

* * *

Tom Oberon stared thoughtfully out the 29th floor window at the dark area of the park below before finally twisting the brushed aluminum blinds in his office shut. The silence of his surroundings permeated him. It was late; he should go home, he thought. Everyone else had.

But that wouldn't make the silence go away.

It had been a year now since his wife, Julie, had died. _Well, almost a year, _he acknowledged. _But a few more days, what's the difference?_ He'd supposed he'd gotten over it as much as he ever would: He could function at work now, his clientele had come back - hell, he even enjoyed what he did again. But that was only while he was actually working. Going home was the worst, even more than waking up alone. At least when he awoke, he could hurry and fill the emptiness in his life with his work. Going home, he could only wait for the workday to start again, so he liked to put it off for as long as possible.

He looked absently down at the file still sitting on his desk. _Virginia Lewis Wolf, _the last patient he'd seen today. There was a bit of a minor mystery to her - not much, it was true, but enough to give him an excuse to sit back down and ponder it, although a year ago he would probably never have bothered. He uncovered a little notepad and started making a bulleted list:

∙Account paid by Robert Murray (with full knowledge of family)

∙Patient extremely reticent about discussing her own pregnancy

∙Odd behavior of husband in park at first meeting

The last comment was probably not worth mentioning, as it had only been Tom's fleeting impression that Mr. Simon Wolf had somehow morphed into a werewolf. He'd thought he'd been hallucinating at first, until he'd heard four skinheads claim, on a news report later that day, that they'd been chased by a werewolf in the park. Of course, no one had believed them, but Tom had been startled when he'd heard it. And he knew that because of it he'd probably given far more attention to Wolf than he usually did to his patients' husbands.

But he was digressing from the topic he'd decided to study: his patient, Virginia, not her husband. He picked up a pen to scratch the comment about Wolf from the list, but stopped. _No, better leave that,_ he decided, though he couldn't have said why. Still, he made a point of forcing himself to analyze the other comments.

_Why would Murray pay for her prenatal care?_ he asked himself. The usual reason, that Murray himself, or someone in his family, had fathered Virginia's child didn't seem to apply. For one thing, Wolf was far too excited about the baby for that to be true, nor was there anything in Virginia's manner that would suggest she was withholding information from her husband. _But,_ he thought, _if the Murrays have nothing specifically to do with her being pregnant, then they must at least owe her - or Wolf - something. _Tom knew the Murrays. They weren't philanthropists. In fact they were quite the opposite. _Must be something really big, then, _he mused. Especially since, so far as he could tell, not only were they paying his fee, they were also footing the bill (and it was a large one, to judge by the Wolfs' address) for Virginia's and Wolf's living expenses.

The big professional question for Tom, however, was: Was Virginia's reluctance _(well, more than reluctance - refusal, really)_ to talk about her own pregnancy directly a result of whatever had happened with the Murrays, or was it something else - something he, as her doctor, should know about? Usually he preferred the quiet patients to the ones who chattered on endlessly, questioning him on such "medical" subjects as how many guests they could safely invite to a dinner party while they were expecting, and so forth, but Virginia was in a class by herself. Normally the quiet ones could be drawn out, but he knew instinctively that if he pushed too hard, Virginia would simply stop seeing him. So he'd decided - wisely, he thought - that she'd be better off getting blind prenatal care than no prenatal care at all. He also knew that all things being equal - that is, if her pregnancy was truly uneventful, as most were, that it would make no difference. The trouble was, he could see events cropping up on the horizon.

They weren't major events in terms of Virginia's safety. If anything, she was probably one of the healthiest patients he had. No, what concerned him now was that he suspected her timing was all wrong, and he couldn't directly ask her about it without frightening her away.

According to his records, she was sixteen weeks pregnant, but by his measurements, she was more like twenty. Ninety-five percent of the time, when this happened, it just meant the patient was mistaken about the time of conception. But in a hundred percent of those cases, he could ask his patient questions. Not so with Virginia, and his attempt to trick some information out of her had been feeble at best, as well as ill-timed: He'd (jokingly, he thought) asked her if she felt the baby moving yet. The question had alarmed her - though she had valiantly tried to avoid answering - and he realized she'd thought he'd meant that something might be wrong if she'd felt nothing. So he'd had to reassure her and make something up about some mothers thinking they felt something that early. And all that and he still had no real information: Virginia was a first-time mother and few of them recognized the sensation even if they felt it at twenty weeks. What he really needed to do in cases like this was an ultrasound, but he somehow knew that even the suggestion would scare her away permanently.

What he couldn't figure out was why. Over and over again he'd tried to come up with something, some reason for her secretiveness. The easiest explanation was that she wanted Wolf to believe the child was his when in fact it wasn't. But Tom didn't believe it. She wasn't keeping her secrets from Wolf, she was keeping them from _him._ In fact, on more than one occasion, she'd tried to shush her husband up, as if the information he was offering would give her away. Not that it had worked; Wolf had blissfully ignored her and gone on discussing - what was it the last time? - how he'd wanted to make sure she was getting enough protein. Oversolicitous, yes, but certainly harmless. _Wasn't it?_

A small corner of his mind whispered _werewolf baby,_ but he pushed the thought away as he had whenever he'd thought it before. _That's ridiculous!_ he insisted to himself, but immediately that same corner of his mind countered with, _but what about what you saw?_

_You see yourself,_ he admitted. _Your love for Julie in Wolf's for Virginia – what you'd like to have had the power to do to her attackers . . ._ He looked down at the notepad and saw that he'd doodled a little stick-figure werewolf. It was holding a heart that said 'Julie.' He tore it up and threw it away. Maybe come morning his thoughts would be clearer.

He came out of the medical building near an entrance to the park, as he usually did. Unlike usual, however, he decided suddenly to cut through the park on his way home. Most of the time he took a cab, but it really wasn't too far and he was in no hurry. And the park still had his wife's blood on its hands; it was no coincidence that the path he took led past the scene of her death.

Streetlights flooded the walkway, though the nearby trees remained lost in darkness. He strolled easily, neither hurrying nor hesitating, watching the breath explode from his mouth into the cold each time he exhaled. Rock salt, poured on the walk to melt the snow and ice, crunched under his feet softly. All else was quiet.

Soft laughter broke into his reverie: a female voice, followed closely by a male's. Though he couldn't yet see them, they seemed to be getting closer.

The next burst of gaiety was abruptly cut off by the dull thunk of a snowball's impact. Several more snowballs quickly followed, then he heard a voice say, "Wolf, quit it!" followed by a giggle.

Even without the clue of her husband's name, he recognized her as his patient, Virginia.

He found himself trudging through knee-high drifts of snow to hide in the darkness of the cover of trees, scolding himself all the way when he realized what he was doing.

_You're spying on them you know that?_ he demanded of himself. _What exactly do you expect to see? They're just having a snowball fight._ But then he countered, _In Central Park, after dark, and off a main path?_ though he knew the argument was hopeless. After all, where was he right now? It was, however, too late to simply pass them casually without having them wonder what he was getting up to in the shadows. They'd come into view, both wearing long overcoats and mufflers, both hatless. Tom watched as Wolf pelted his wife with a couple more snowballs, then fell for an old trick: Virginia pretended to be hurt and Wolf immediately came up to comfort her – and just as quickly got a snowball thrust down the collar of his coat. He yelped, then scooped up his laughing wife into his arms. Tom felt voyeuristic, and the feeling was not made better by Virginia's next words, "Come on, Wolf, we have to get back," she said, "And doesn't a nice warm bed sound more comfortable than in the snow?"

"Well, you could lay on my coat," her husband offered, then laughed at her hesitation. "I was kidding," he told her. "Let's go. Where is it again?"

"Right here somewhere," she replied, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her nose. "There, between those two trees." She pointed.

Tom's mouth dropped open at the sight. A vague, flickering, bluish light shone from the otherwise dark area. He wondered whose lantern shown from within the copse of trees, and what sort of meeting Virginia and Wolf were headed for – having decided in that moment to follow them and investigate. But he was unprepared for what happened next: They both stepped up to the light and vanished into it. A moment later it winked out.

Tom blinked and squinted, stepping back out onto the path. Surely they had just entered a small grove of trees and whoever had the lantern had simply turned it off, he thought. But he had to investigate, just to make sure; just to satisfy his own overloaded imagination that nothing supernatural had taken place. But he couldn't do it tonight. If they were in the trees, they'd surely see him coming. So he went home and spent what was left of the evening trying to conjure up more reasons for their strange behavior. In the morning, he went back, confounded to discover that the snow beyond the place where he'd seen the light was untrampled. Two sets of footprints, one large and one small, led to nowhere; they simply stopped. Tom stared at them in disbelief. From the corner of his eye, something winked at him in the morning sun. With an effort of will, he tore his gaze from the impossible footprints and looked down at something round and gold, a coin. He picked it up. On one side was imprinted the profile of a monarch surrounded by the words "Wendell, Third Reign of the House of White"; the other bore a scripted 'w' backed by two crossed swords and set with a crown in the center and the legend, "Fourth Kingdom". Old toothmarks sunk into its surface proved it was the real thing; no joke was being played here, unless the jokester was extremely rich. Tom hefted it a moment, thoughtfully, then put it in his pocket and walked away.

* * *

Virginia wasn't sure what exactly woke her; she wasn't quite inclined to get up yet - snuggling against Wolf felt too good. Their room in the palace was somewhat drafty and cold on winter mornings, despite a servant's having already built the fire.

_Maybe that's what woke me, _she thought, but then wondered why Wolf hadn't heard it. He still seemed sound asleep next to her, his arms wound around her (why his arm didn't go to sleep in that position she didn't know), one hand resting on the swelling in her belly.

She twisted restlessly, needing to change position, but he went on sleeping, his impossibly long eyelashes lying peacefully against his cheek.

_How come men are the only ones who get naturally long, thick eyelashes like that? _she wondered idly, curious then if the baby would inherit those from him._Only if it's a boy,_ she decided.

But that line of thought brought her back to her last doctor's visit, two days ago. Not that she hadn't thought about it in the meantime.

She couldn't help it; every time she went to Dr. Oberon, she was terrified - terrified he would somehow detect that her baby wasn't entirely human. She didn't know what would happen if he did, but she was sure it wouldn't be good. Various scenarios had occurred to her and most of them ended with them all locked away somewhere as laboratory specimens – or worse, Wolf and the baby were locked away and Virginia, having been discarded after the birth, couldn't get near either of them. That really frightened her, even though she knew rationally that it wasn't likely to happen. They could always make a run for the mirror if they had to; it wasn't like gynecologists kept security guards around just in case their patients needed to be locked up. She'd just seen too many grade B science fiction movies on the late show – and of course been abandoned by her own mother. She wondered if she'd ever completely get over that fear – of being left alone.

Predictable science fiction plot notwithstanding, she'd still be a lot more comfortable and relaxed if she didn't have to see Dr. Oberon every month – not that there was anything wrong with the man, he was very nice. Virginia had just, after having thought about it for awhile, decided that seeing him was rather useless. After all, she reasoned, suppose she got sick, or suffered from one of the problems pregnant women could get? (She had no idea what they might be and didn't want to – Wolf was the one who had read the books the doctor had given to her about pregnancy and childbirth.) But what could be done about it if her baby weren't even human anyway, or at least what could be done without them finding out the truth?

Wolf himself didn't seem to help. Despite her pleading every time they went to the doctor, he talked like only Wolf could about what seemed like every tiny detail of her pregnancy – and even stuff she didn't think had anything to do with being pregnant. She always spent the entire time petrified that he'd say something to give away what he was, even though she had to acknowledge he was right when he'd told her that he'd had lots of practice at hiding his nature from the world, so it wasn't likely to just slip out.

She looked down at his face again, this time catching the slight hint of a smile about his lips. On closer examination, she noticed the glint of green peeking out from under those lashes.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed, but he still feigned not to hear her. She squirmed and stuck her fingers in his ribs. He jerked away and laughed, his eyes finally opening completely.

"I was listening to the cub, it's awake too," he informed her.

"I thought you said you could only hear it during full moon," she countered.

"It's more noticeable then," he acknowledged, "But since I know what I'm looking for, I can hear it sometimes now too." His smile told her he was still listening to it.

Virginia couldn't feel anything, not even something she could pretend was the baby moving, like maybe her stomach growling or gas. It somehow didn't seem quite fair; after all, she was the one carrying it. She was the one who had to have her body all stretched and bloated out of shape.

But that thought only brought her back to thinking about Wolf's motives again: Not that she thought he didn't love her, but she couldn't help wondering if it was a lover he saw when he looked at her or simply the mother of his child. Sure, they'd made love last night, but she'd reached the point now where they really had to get creative to do it, and of course that made her feel even more like a small whale. _Maybe,_ she thought, _maybe he's only doing it at all just to try to please me. After all, I can hardly be called sexy looking like this._

"You ready for the big day?" Wolf purred into her ear, interrupting her mental rambling.

"What?" she asked, then, remembering, "Oh. The midwinter feast."

He smiled.

"I'll bet Wendell has a wonderful breakfast planned."

"Probably," she agreed.

It was, in fact, an enormous breakfast, served buffet style in the ballroom, which had been festooned with greenery and red ribbons for the occasion. Virginia blinked when she saw it. The smell of the freshly cut spruce, the colors, the food, and the large stack of presents piled on and up the grand staircase made her look around for a Christmas tree, but of course there was none. _No wonder he thought all the Christmas decorations in New York were for the midwinter feast,_ she thought.

"Oooh, look at the presents, Virginia," Wolf exclaimed, though not until he had finished piling a large stack of bacon on his plate.

"Yeah, there sure are a lot of them," she agreed.

"No, no," he said. "I mean_ look_ at the presents."

Well, one thing about Wolf, he wasn't subtle. Not about things like this anyway, she thought wryly.

"Okay, Wolf, I'll look," she agreed. "Just let me get something to eat first."

She glanced over the buffet, groaning with such breakfast delicacies as smoked salmon, kippers, crusty bread and moldy cheeses, and selected a pear. Wolf frowned.

"Oh, Virginia, you need to eat more than that," he said.

She glared at him.

"Wolf," she said severely. It was enough.

"I'm sorry," he said contritely. "It's just that I want to be sure you eat enough. I don't want you to start getting sick again."

"We've had this conversation before," she pointed out. "You can't control everything I eat."

"I know," he replied in a tiny voice. He sounded so pitiful that she relented.

"I was going to come back for more anyway," she told him, and deliberately changed the subject, "What is it you wanted to show me?"

"Oh!" he bounced over to the grand staircase. "Look at these!"

She went along with it, her eyes scanning the tags until she finally spied her own name written in Wolf's florid hand.

The box was enormous. She stared at it a moment, then looked up at Wolf curiously. He was staring back at her gleefully.

"Bet you can't guess what it is," he taunted.

_I'll bet I can't either,_ she thought, and asked, "Is this what you said you got me in New York?"

He nodded, still grinning from ear to ear.

_How'd he get it through the mirror? _she wanted to know. _And when?_

"Go ahead, guess," he insisted.

"Oh, I can't," she said.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeezzzzze," he pleaded.

She sighed.

"Okay, let me think a minute."

She thought. It couldn't be clothes or jewelry, the box was too big. She had no idea at all what would come in a box that size. In fact, she hadn't gotten a present that big since . . . _Oh._

It wasn't really for her after all, she thought. It was for the baby. The only things that came in boxes that size were for children. Probably a cradle or a baby swing (she hoped it wasn't a bike or something, but she really didn't think Wolf would get that far ahead of the baby's development).

"Well?" he asked hopefully.

"I really don't know," she lied, trying to hide her disappointment.

"Oh, come on," he continued to cajole her.

She knew he wouldn't give up.

"Okay, um . . . an elephant?"

"Nope!"

"I don't know then."

"Guess again."

She sighed again.

"No, Wolf. I want to wait and be surprised."

"Oh," he said, somewhat mollified. "Well you'll never guess anyway."

"Then there's no point in trying," she declared. "Now let's go eat breakfast."

That never failed to distract him, she knew. The trouble was, nowadays he seemed more interested in her diet than his own.

The evening still looked like the Christmas special to Virginia. After the feast, which had involved 26 courses and taken seven hours, everyone gathered in the ballroom, now lit with thousands of candles, and sang songs. Only, none of the songs were ones she recognized, not even _Jingle Bells,_ so she just listened while everyone else sang. Wolf, of course, sang loudly and exuberantly, but he had a pretty good voice, she thought.

Wendell made an effort to join in and look convincingly jolly, even though Rupert had had to go back to his own hold for the holiday. All the lords were required to be in attendance at home for the midwinter feast, where they were expected to take provisions to the needy in their districts, so Wendell had not, nor would he ever, expect Rupert to stay on at the palace during the festivities. Similarly, Wolf had not expected his Aunt Millie to return with his sister Dierdre's baby due any moment. She still hadn't given birth; they knew that much at least, since Wendell had gifted Millie with a magic missive to send back to them as a birth announcement, and it hadn't yet appeared.

Samantha the Necromancer had stayed on, however, as had Princess Gwendolyn. In fact, the sight of the fairy Ice Princess sitting quite close to Wendell made Virginia more than a little curious. She'd never managed to discover - not that she'd tried terribly hard - exactly what the friction was between her and Rupert. Virginia, at least, had assumed there was friction there because of the comment both Rupert and Wendell had made upon her arrival and by Rupert's diffident behavior towards Gwendolyn. But whatever it was, Wendell obviously knew about it and apparently didn't care, because he had never seemed less than natural talking to her, including now.

The music came to a stop. Wendell stood up.

"All right," he announced. "Now it's time for what you've all been waiting for -- at least for what Wolf's been waiting for -- since dinner ended."

Everyone laughed. He beckoned to a servant, who came forward carrying a red velvet bag. They'd all had to draw numbers before the feast and Virginia knew that now Wendell was going to select who won the right to give away the first gift.

Wendell unfolded the paper he'd chosen and looked up.

"Seven," he said knowingly.

Wolf howled and everyone else groaned. He'd told everyone his number was seven so often they all had it memorized. Grasping Virginia by the wrist, he nearly dragged her to the present-filled stairway, where he fixed her with an eager and expectant stare.

She tried to play along and act excited, since she knew everyone was in such a festive mood, but her heart wasn't really in it. She didn't need positive proof that Wolf only saw a mother when he looked at her now and was really afraid she might start crying when she opened the box.

_Oh, what the hell,_ she finally decided. _Maybe they'll think they're tears of joy._ Except their ignorance of how she really felt would probably only make it worse.

She pulled on the ribbon and it fell away. Slowly she lifted the lid and peeked in. The box was empty.

She shot a curious glance at Wolf while she heard her father ask, "What is it, honey?"

"It's empty," she said, her voice small and full of confusion.

"Oh, no . . . no it's not," her husband insisted. "Here." He dived headfirst into the box to get something, emerging with a small slip of paper, which he handed reverently to her.

She took it, though her eyes never left the look of happy self-satisfaction on his face until she felt it in her hand. Then she looked down and read:

_My dearest sweet Virginia,_

_I love you so much no gift seems enough for me to get for you. But I found out there was a special New Year's celebration at the Plaza Hotel, so I've reserved us a room there for it. I wanted our first New Year's together to be extra romantic, especially since it's the last one before we become parents. I hope you feel the same. _

_Your loving husband,_

_Wolf_

She looked up at him and then down at the paper again.

"Do you like it?" she heard him ask earnestly.

"I love it, Wolf," she replied, her voice choked with tears.

* * *

Virginia's grandmother watched the exchange with an attitude of arch irony. In her opinion, Wolf's gift was no proper present. A man of means should get his wife jewelry, not a night in a hotel, no matter how swank. That Virginia seemed so pleased by the token only showed how low the girl's expectations had sunk. Not that much could be done to alter the situation since she'd gotten herself pregnant, but it didn't mean that Simon couldn't be educated. And, seeing his hand resting familiarly on Virginia's swelling belly, she thought that his education might do well to start with that: It just didn't do to show that kind of affection in public; it was vulgar. Not to mention it drew unneeded attention to just how big her granddaughter was getting. Surely that couldn't be natural. She knew that Virginia's appetite had increased quite a bit. The girl was going to be sorry after the child was born and she was left with all that extra baggage to get rid of.

A part of Helen whispered to her that this place was different, that Simon was different and that it might have some effect on how Virginia carried the baby, but she pushed that voice angrily aside, focusing instead on Simon's status, or rather, his lack thereof: _Different, yes,_ she thought, _He's different, all right. He's a member of an oppressed minority. And while King Wendell might have granted them that pardon, it's not likely to have any more immediate effect than the civil rights legislation had for the blacks in 1964. Oh, Virginia, how could you have let yourself get mixed up with him? A short order cook - at least a white short order cook - would have been a better catch. Even your father was a better catch._

She noticed suddenly that one of the king's courtiers was watching her and realized that her expression was probably anything but attractive. Deliberately, she relaxed her facial muscles and took a deep breath. What was the matter with her anyway, she wondered? Why did she have to be so sour, especially at Christmastime? (She couldn't think of the holiday as anything except Christmas.) Simon might be a minority, but he was a national hero and a friend of the king. She ought to focus on that, not on how her granddaughter could have done better. After all, it was too late to do anything about it now, so why dwell on it? _Careful, Helen, you're going to start in again. Think of something else!_

Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was to wonder exactly what was so different about Simon's kind. She'd been rather successful at ignoring that topic before, telling herself that there probably was no real difference; that it was like that incomprehensible racial thing in Bosnia, where people who had no connection to the place couldn't tell the difference between the two sides. _No, wait,_ she thought. _Wasn't that a religious difference? Oh, who knows. It's just ridiculously stupid, like this probably is. The main thing is that Simon doesn't look any different than anyone else._

_He does seem rather hairy,_ the voice in her given to argument observed.

_Well, so are a lot of men. In fact there are plenty of men in the world a lot hairier than Simon. _

_Which world? The old world or this one? This is a magic world. Elves and fairies live here, you've seen them._

_Yes, of course, but Simon obviously isn't an elf or a fairy._

_No, he's a half-wolf,_ came the reply. _What exactly does that mean?_

She caught her breath; the mental image that came to her was similar to that of a satyr: Could her grandson-in-law have a wolf's body from the waist down? Was that what it meant? Unable to resist, she eyed him critically, though at the moment it was rather hard as he was wearing a frock coat. Come to think of it, he always seemed to be wearing some kind of long coat. She wondered if that meant anything, but decided her fears were probably groundless since she could see his feet - well, his shoes - perfectly well, and they appeared to be normal human feet, not paws.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the approach of her son-in-law, accompanied by that annoying woman with the cat. She sighed wearily as she prepared herself to be civil to them.

"Merry Yule to you, Helen," he offered. She could hear in his voice that he'd rather she wasn't around, but since she felt the same about him, she wasn't offended.

"I doubt that's the proper salutation for the occasion," she felt obligated to point out.

"Oh, well," he said jovially, "You know what? I don't care."

She tried flashing him a freezing smile, preparing to move away quickly, but he ignored it. Not that she shouldn't have been surprised – he'd never known what any of her high society body language meant. Or, she reflected, he hadn't cared about that either.

"Wendell and I have kind of gone together to get you a little something," he began, looking over his wassail mug for the king.

"That's_King_Wendell," she snapped, "You should address him by his proper title."

Helen had no idea what suddenly made her say such a thing. After all, why did she care if Tony got himself into trouble with the king? She tried to ignore it, as her son-in-law did, though for different reasons, but the smirk on his lady friend's face grated on her.

Tony finally caught the king's eye and hauled him over.

"Ah, yes," he remarked. "We can't forget Virginia's grandmother, now can we?"

He made a curt gesture to a servant, who marched up carrying a sealed letter on a silver tray.

"Here we go," he prattled as he removed the parchment envelope and presented it to her.

She looked down at it, at the little impressed 'w' on the white wax seal. On the other side was written her name: _Lady Helen Charles._

She opened it.

_Be it known that henceforth, the property of_ – a legal boundary description, which took up most of the page followed – _including all rights and privileges therein, doth belong to the Lady Helen Charles, for her to dispose of as she sees fit. Sworn to this day, Midwinter of the first year of his reign, King Wendell the First of the Fourth Kingdom._

"I picked it out," Tony confided. "Wendell just took care of the legal stuff."

She thought she might be going to cry. Didn't they want her here, she wondered? She'd thought she was welcome at the royal palace.

The other, more rational side of her told her not to be so stupid, that it was only a gift and a good one at that. One's husband should get one jewelry. From anyone else, real estate was quite desirable. But she couldn't seem to move.

The king mistook her hesitation.

"We had assumed you wished to stay in our dimension," he explained. "If that isn't the case . . ?"

She was fortunately saved from needing to answer immediately by a messenger who breathlessly ran into the room.

"Your majesty," he wheezed, obviously impatient and ill-at-ease.

"Please excuse me," Wendell told them smoothly, leading the man away with a smile. But as Helen watched, she saw his expression suddenly shift to grave concern. He glanced up at the clock, then spoke a few more words to the messenger, who nodded and vanished as quickly as he'd come. Wendell returned and apologized for the interruption. But though he carried on as if nothing unusual had taken place, Helen was unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. She glanced up at the clock herself. It read three minutes until midnight.

"Yes," said Wendell. "Almost the hour. They're passing around the toasts now."

As if on cue a liveried servant held a tray of champagne glasses at her elbow. She took one, a part of her mind thinking _finally something besides wassail, _but was too distracted to really think much more about the drink she now held numbly in her hand. Something was about to happen; probably had already happened. She could feel it.

_Stop it, Helen, you're being ridiculous,_ she ordered herself. _You've been in a mood all day; this is just more of it. _But the feeling didn't go away, not even when Wendell called everyone's attention to the time and raised his own glass in salute. She looked around the room for some clue to why she felt this way, seeing all the others in a kind of slow motion: Simon was frowning at the two glasses in his hands while her granddaughter, holding none, glared icily at him. No help there. Tony was grinning inanely, talking to that cat-lover Samantha, but not looking at her; his eyes were on the clock. Samantha herself was trying to balance her animal with one hand while holding the glass in the other. The scene refreshed Helen's indignation that Roland had not been able to attend, but did little else. The servants had all retreated to the kitchen. Which brought her back to Wendell, standing partway up the now-cleared stairway.

The clock struck. She held her breath for the count of twelve, expecting she didn't know what, but when it had ended, Wendell simply declared, "To the new year. May it be peaceful and prosperous," and drained his glass. Everyone else did the same, except Virginia -- and Simon. Nothing else happened, though as it always did when she watched New Year's celebrations on TV, the party came abruptly to an end. Wendell formally thanked everyone for coming, then walked over to Simon and Virginia.

"May I have a word with you?" she heard him say, and noticed he appeared as distracted now as she felt.

"Something happened, didn't it?" her granddaughter asked. "It's about what that messenger came to report."

"Yes," he said, "I don't quite know how to tell you this."

"Just say it," Simon suggested.

"Doctor Mellifict . . . has escaped."

"Who's Doctor Mellifict?"

Everyone suddenly went silent and turned to stare at her. Helen felt as if she were intruding on a private conversation.

"He's . . er . . that is to say he _was_ my private physician," said Wendell. "Until he took it upon himself to do away with Virginia's maid."

"Do away with?" she asked, aghast. "You mean he's a murderer?"

"I'm afraid so. We caught him when he attempted to do away with Molly" - the king turned abruptly away and spoke to the nearest attendant - "Please make sure Molly is well guarded."

Helen turned to her granddaughter.

"He has it in for your maids?" she asked.

Virginia hesitated.

"It's Wolf's . . . I mean . . . well . . ."

"What?"

"It's because of me," Simon told her. "Mellifict is a member of a group of people that think all wolfs should be exterminated. He tried to kill Virginia and the baby and Molly tried to stop him. Probably Emma did too."

She couldn't keep herself from staring disapprovingly at her granddaughter. The situation was just so much worse than she'd imagined. Could Virginia have found a husband any lower on the social ladder, she wondered? She was quite tired of these unpleasant surprises and decided the air needed a complete clearing on the entire subject, immediately.

"I am just not clear on this," she announced. "What exactly is it about Simon's kind that is supposedly so undesireable?"

Again they were silent a moment. Finally, the little fairy girl said, "You mean you don't know?"

"Well, of course I don't know, my dear, or I wouldn't have asked," she replied haughtily.

"Well, you see . . ." began Wendell, "half-wolfs supposedly have been responsible for . . ."

"They're lies!" Wolf interrupted. "There are no more really bad half-wolfs than there are bad humans. Well . . . not many more, anyway."

"I'm aware of that," replied Wendell in a placating tone. "Didn't I sign a pardon for all wolfs?"

"Don't think I didn't know you weren't thinking of tearing it up!"

Helen's mind whirled, and she stopped listening to their argument, only vaguely aware of their voices. _Simon not human?_ she thought. _What is he, then? And if he's not human, how could Virginia get pregnant?_

"Wait," she said. No one seemed to pay her any attention. "I said WAIT!"

Tight-lipped, both men turned to stare at her.

"You're not human?" she asked incredulously. It was hard to believe; he certainly looked human enough to her. A momentary vision of her satyr-like wolf creature flashed through her mind.

"I'm a half-wolf," he replied, as if that answered the question perfectly. She glanced at the others. The king was still staring at Simon, obviously incensed. In the background, she could see Tony trying not to laugh. Virginia stared icily at him.

"But what does that mean?" she pressed. "What exactly _is_ a half-wolf?"

Her granddaughter turned to her as her son-in-law snickered.

"Wolf -- _Simon_ -- is a werewolf, Grandmother," she said bluntly. "That's what it means."

Helen blinked.

"Oh don't be ridiculous, Virginia," she said automatically. "There's no such thing as a . . ." Her eyes fell on the fairy girl's iridescent blue wings. Mutely, she glanced up at Simon, now unable to envision anything but Lon Chaney transforming into the Wolf Man. Her grandson-in-law stared back at her as if daring her to make a comment.

"How did it happen to you?" she asked.

"What?" Clearly, he hadn't expected her to inquire.

"How did you become a werewolf?"

"He was born one, Grandmother," Virginia informed her. "They're a race of people."

Helen digested this, barely hearing King Wendell proclaim that they had all wasted enough time, and needed to get back to the matter at hand: Doctor Mellifict. _But how can there be a race of werewolves?_ she wondered. _They're not fairy-tale creatures, are they?_ Abruptly the stories of_ Little Red Riding Hood_ and _The Three Pigs_ flashed through her mind. _But those were just animals that could talk; make-believe. Aren't they? And if werewolves are in the stories what about . . . _She suddenly recalled that many of the fairy tales she'd read or had read to her were full of very dark creatures. Creatures that would take your soul if you gave it to them. As Christine had done.

" . . . don't have the slightest idea of where he could have got to," she heard Wendell say.

Without knowing why, she suddenly replied, "Snow White's stepmother."

They stopped talking and looked at her.

"Snow White's stepmother?" asked the king curiously. "How do you know?"

"I just know," she insisted, hoping to be believed. There was no real way she could explain. It just simply was a fact, like gravity. Nor did she wish to reveal the details about the visit she'd received from her daughter - even if they did believe her, the king wasn't likely to receive the news very gladly. She'd learned that, at least, living in the palace. "That's where he's gone."

* * *

"But what makes you think so?" pressed Virginia. Thinking about what she'd seen and done in that cellar (only a few months ago?) wasn't something she wanted to do - or repeat.

"Virginia . . ." her grandmother began.

"No," said Wendell. "She's probably right. And even if not, the Swamp Witch is someone we have so far been successful in ignoring, which is never a good idea. She needs to be dealt with. We may have waited too long already."

"How?" Virginia wanted to know. "How do you kill someone who's already dead?"

"Well . . . that difficulty is the main reason she's managed to survive this long," he replied. "That and her location inside the swamp. But I was hoping that now there's a necromancer at the court . . ?" He looked hopefully at Samantha.

"No," she said bluntly. The finality of her statement seemed to shock Tony, who was standing next to her.

"What do you mean, no?" he asked.

"I mean just that," she said reasonably. "I can't get professionally involved in political or personal matters. It's strictly against Guild policy."

"Professionally involved," he said, seizing her words. "How about personally involved? This Mellifict tried to kill my daughter, you know! Not to mention what that old witch did to my wife. I thought you and I were friends."

"I thought so too," she agreed. "And, yes, I am willing to help on a personal level. But that level does not include either magical assistance _or_ arcane advice."

"Oh, well that's just dandy!" he exclaimed. "What good is your help, then?"

"Anthony . . ." said Wendell quietly.

"Sometimes the view of another person can make all the difference," Samantha returned. "I am more than just a repository of spells, you know."

"Yeah, well you'd never know you were that," spat Tony sourly. "I haven't seen you cast a single spell since you've been here. I'm beginning to think you can't."

"Anthony . . ."said Wendell again, louder this time.

"That is not going to work," she said flatly.

"What?" asked Tony.

"What you're doing. Daring me. It won't work."

"I wasn't daring you. I was . . ."

"ANTHONY!"

"WHAT?!" demanded Tony, finally focusing his attention on Wendell.

"They_aren't_ allowed to interfere. It was _my_ mistake to ask in the first place," he explained.

"Yeah, well, excuse me, but it sucks anyway! I don't see how we could even get near her. I mean, the swamp alone will kill us."

Virginia saw an opportunity and jumped in with something she had been thinking about on and off for some time.

"Maybe not," she said. "Wolf rescued us, remember? He managed somehow to not be affected."

Unfortunately, her husband's reaction was anything but helpful.

"Umm . . . well . . . uh . . ." he began incoherently, and her hopes sank. Not only that, but she was sure she was going to be treated to yet another dramatic "confession" to something he was sure she wasn't going to like.

"Never mind then," she told him quickly, hoping to forestall the inevitable.

"Oh, Virginia . . ." He was starting to whine. Unexpectedly, Samantha came to her rescue.

"The queen gave you something to protect you from the swamp's effects, didn't she?" she asked.

"Well . . . um . . ."

_Obviously so,_ thought Virginia. Out loud, she said, "It's okay, Wolf. I understand."

"Well, do you still have it?" her father asked.

Realizing that Tony was speaking to him, Wolf replied, "Have what?"

"Whatever it was that Christine gave you," explained Tony, his voice still annoyed. "The magic gizmo that got you through the swamp."

"Huh?"

_Mom didn't give him anything?_ wondered Virginia, confused. _Then why is he acting like that?_ She didn't want to think it was something worse. Or, she reflected, that the curse was back at work on him again.

"There is nothing like you're talking about," Samantha explained. "Amulets can be lost or forgotten too easily. The protection would've been in the form of a spell. But it would have long since worn off."

"And the _good_ witch won't give us any protection," growled Tony.

"I_can't!_"

"No, you _won't._ There's a difference."

"Stop it! STOP IT!" shouted Wendell. "Quit arguing! We need to do something, not complain about what we don't have."

"But the whole point is . . ."

"Anthony, that is enough!"

"Fine." Her father folded his arms and walked away. Virginia rolled her eyes as she watched him sit down sullenly on a red velvet divan.

_He still hasn't gotten over acting like a spoiled brat when he doesn't get his way,_ she thought, though privately she agreed with him. Not using your powers for evil was one thing. Not using them at all was carrying non-interference a little too far. Obviously, however, Samantha was not about to be persuaded, so Virginia didn't bother to try.

"I suppose we should investigate the dungeon," suggested Wendell. "Perhaps Mellifict left something behind in his cell that might give us a place to start."

"Excellent idea," agreed Samantha.

"Yes," agreed Wolf readily. "Virginia needs to go back to New York as quickly as possible."

"What?" She wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. What did going to New York have to do with investigating the doctor's cell, she wondered.

"You need to go back to New York," he assured her. "This witch is_bad,_ Virginia. You can't imagine how bad she is. You won't be safe here."

"She won't be safe in New York, either," piped up her grandmother, saving her the need to argue.

"Christine wasn't safe there."

He looked absolutely crestfallen, so much so that she wanted to hug him. Clearly, he hadn't considered what had happened to her mother.

"Oh, huff puff . . ." he whined miserably.

"I've faced her before, Wolf," she reminded him.

"Oh, but Virginia, you weren't pregnant then."

Expecting him to say something like that, she'd had an almost automatic response prepared. But somehow the hard reality of the spoken words frightened her, in an almost visceral way.

_The baby . . ._

"He is right," Samantha said with a sigh. "Laura will be looking for a new host. She'll want a woman of power; a child would be ideal for her purposes. And, quite frankly, I doubt she could do better than yours."

"What are you saying?" asked Virginia.

"The gift tends to run in families. It's quite rare, however, for two such families to intermarry. And if you add to that the natural abilities of half-wolfs, it adds up to a rather powerful combination."

"Wait a minute," said Virginia. "You said she'd want a _woman_ of power. My baby is a boy."

Samantha studied her middle with careful consideration.

"No," she said. "You're carrying a girl."

"Wolf said it was a boy," Virginia insisted.

"No, I didn't!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, you did! At the banquet, when you first told me I was pregnant."

He looked confused.

"How would I have known that?" he demanded.

"_I_don't know!" she cried. "Something else "wolfies" know?"

"I'm sure it's a girl," Samantha insisted adamantly. "But I'll get another opinion." She turned to the blue fairy, who had been so quiet, Virginia had almost forgotten she was there. "Gwendolyn, your professional opinion?"

_Professional opinion?_ Virginia wondered.

"I'm sorry if you wanted a boy, Virginia," she said, "But it's definitely a girl this time."

"How do you know that?" she nearly screamed. "Does everybody here know more about my baby than I do??!"

"No, no, no," Samantha assured her. "It's just something fairies can tell. They're very good with babies and children."

"What about you?" demanded Virginia, exasperated. "You're not a fairy. Or were you just going with some old wives tale about how I'm "carrying" it?"

"Er . . . no," replied the wizard, suddenly clearly uncomfortable.

Virginia felt Wolf take her hand.

"Virginia . . ." he murmured.

"How, then?" she insisted on knowing.

"She used magic," spat Tony bitterly from across the room. "Didn't you? You can use a spell to see what sex my grandchild is, but you can't help us keep her from getting taken over by that . . . by that . . . that thing!"

"You used a spell on me?" asked Virginia, aghast.

* * *

"Virginia . . ." Wolf whined.

He thought the arguments and accusations were never going to end. At least, by four in the morning, they'd all finally managed to move to the dungeon, though everyone seemed to still be at each others' throats. If it were up to him, he would have taken Virginia and disappeared through the mirror long ago. All this hesitation was making him nervous, especially after what Samantha had said about the witch coming after his daughter.

_My daughter!_ he thought. _I'm going to have a daughter!_ He only wished the excitement he felt weren't dampened by knowing how much danger she was in, even before she was born! What was taking Virginia so long to agree to go back to New York? Didn't she sense the danger to their child? And even though her tough old bird of a grandmother'd had a point about New York not being completely safe, it still seemed best to him for them to go back through the mirror. Why was Virginia wasting time arguing with everyone? For that matter, why was everyone arguing? It didn't seem natural.

As soon as he'd thought it, the hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle. _Not natural. Oh, this is not good, not good at all._ But what could he do? Virginia would never forgive him if he picked her up and carried her through the mirror against her will. But he thought he'd probably have to do just that. They'd pass the cell with the mirror in it before they ever came to Mellifict's. He just had to time it right. He hoped she'd forgive him.

_Yes, this is familiar,_ he thought of the path as they walked along, trying to tune out their conversation. If he listened too hard, he'd just get drawn into it himself, he knew. He'd been a bit upset at Samantha's using her magic to find out about the baby (she might have asked them first) but fortunately had been so concerned about Virginia's reaction that he'd refrained from mentioning it. _Just a little farther,_ he thought.

It was then that he realized what was so familiar. It wasn't the path, though he'd walked these corridors before. It was the scent of the person he could now identify beyond a doubt. He stopped.

The others walked on a bit before Virginia finally turned around.

"Wolf?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

He waited a moment, hesitant to speak the words, to acknowledge out loud the betrayal. At last, he said simply, "It's Rafe. He's been here. Not very long ago."


	10. IX The Wicked Stepmother

IX - The Wicked Stepmother

Samantha had mutely joined the others to trail after Wolf as he followed his brother's scent. She'd been as shocked as the rest of them at his revelation, more so by the accusation he'd flung at them all afterwards: She should have realized herself that their petty bickering was not a natural occurrence. Yet it had taken his wolf-like powers to get her (and everyone's) attention. She wouldn't soon forget the way his eyes had changed and the mesmerizing hold they'd cast over her. Like Gwendolyn, she'd never actually met a wolf before to know she'd met one. It was all too easy to forget that Wolf was anything but the rather excitable human he appeared to be on the surface. _And he was able to notice what was happening when I couldn't,_ she thought. _No wonder he was invited to join the guild._ But the stronger his ability, the greater the danger to his child from someone like Laura.

Guiltily, Samantha thought about what she'd done to determine the baby's sex. None of it was at all harmful, but doing what she'd done without the parents' permission was as against guild policy as interfering in political matters. Virginia had a perfect right to be angry with her, and even the rationalization that the guild would need to know as much as possible about a possible host for Laura couldn't excuse what she'd done.

She wondered if maybe she hadn't risen to Tony's bait after all: She knew what she'd thought when he'd said that about her not being able to really cast a spell: A very smug _You wouldn't necessarily know it if I had!_ And though she didn't think she'd done it as a retort, she hadn't noticed the argument being artificial either. Somehow it made it worse that Tony hadn't said a word since Wolf had gotten it through to them that they were being _encouraged_ to argue.

The six of them followed Wolf in silence as he led them through the maze of corridors in the dungeon to a little-used access door that gave onto the service courtyard. Without missing a beat, he unlatched it and stepped outside.

"You mean to tell me this has been unlocked this entire time?" Wendell demanded, outraged.

His voice fell on silence. Wolf didn't answer, just continued out across the grounds.

"How far are we going?" Samantha heard Helen finally ask. "You know, we didn't bring coats or anything."

Ordinarily, she would have offered to cast a spell to keep them all warm, but felt it would be inappropriate to mention it now. And, even though she was freezing, she felt too guilty to use it only on herself. Her arms folded, she followed Wolf's unwavering trail in brisk silence.

At last Virginia quietly said, "Wolf . . ." and he stopped.

"Oh, Virginia!" he exclaimed as if he'd just seen her. "You have no coat! Are you cold?" He gave her a bear hug and didn't let go. "Oh, I'm so bad! Why didn't I think about how cold this would make you?"

Any other time, Samantha would have been amused to see how Virginia alone could get Wolf's attention. Now, however, she was just plain irritated. The castle was already a good distance behind them. How far was Wolf planning to track his brother's scent, she wondered? For all they knew, he might decide to follow it all the way into the village. Moodily, she glanced over at Tony to find him regarding her. He no longer looked at all angry, just uncomfortable. It made her feel worse.

"I don't suppose you've got any kind of portable furnace spell?" he asked.

She nodded slowly. "Yes," she said.

He stared a moment more. "Oh," he said then, and looked away.

"Do you want me to . . .?" she began.

"Yes!" he exclaimed quickly, then made a face, adding, "No, I prefer freezing my ass off. What a thing to ask when we're all freezing to death."

"Oh, okay," she said. It took all of two seconds to implement; it wasn't as if she hadn't been thinking about it constantly since they'd first stepped outside.

"Wow!" exclaimed Tony. "That was quick. Don't you have to wave your arms and chant something?"

"No, that's just blowing smoke," she replied. _Careful! That's something else you're too ridiculously proud of._

Tony might have pressed her for an explanation, but Wendell cut in.

"You mean you have some method of keeping us all warm?" he asked, and she was forced to admit once again that yes, she did, but hadn't wanted to intrude.

Virginia hastily apologized for any quick words she'd said about the spell Samantha had used before. That set off a round of apologies which threatened to become as intense as their previous argument, but was interrupted by an epithet from Wolf:

"Huff, puff!" he exclaimed, stopping abruptly.

"What?" Virginia asked him.

"It just stops."

"What?"

He didn't reply, walked a few steps back the way they'd come and sniffed the air.

"You mean the trail stops?" asked Wendell.

"Yes!"

"Well where could he have gone?" asked Virginia.

Wolf didn't answer. Samantha suspected he didn't have one.

"There's not much point in us all standing out here if you've lost the trail," announced Wendell.

"I didn't lose it, it just stops," Wolf spat back.

"Wolf . . ." she and Virginia said at once.

He put his arm around Virginia and pulled her close.

"I'm sorry, Virginia."

"How could it just stop?" Tony wanted to know. "Magic?"

For a moment, no one said anything, then Samantha said, "Yes, that's certainly a possibility."

"He's right, you know," Helen piped up, oblivious to (or maybe deliberately ignoring) her son-in-law's question. "We may be warm enough now, but it's not doing any good for us to be out here standing around in the dark."

They'd walked back in relative silence, until about 50 feet from the door, Tony said,

"I'm sorry about what I said."

She hadn't expected him to apologize and had no immediate reply.

"I mean," he went on, as if her silence meant she needed further clarification, "I should – I suppose I did – realize that if you could have done something, you would have a long time ago."

_Does he mean about his wife - the queen - Christine?_ she wondered. _And would I have?_ Living at the Guild, she hadn't been terribly interested in what went on in the world. It was only now, experiencing the results first hand, that she felt at all connected to it.

But Tony's words made her think of something else, too; the obvious connection between what she'd come here to study and the prisoner who had escaped: Wolf's brother Rafe. If Gwendolyn were correct, and he had incited her brother towards hatred of wolfs, then she had to face the possibility that the curse had been invoked with Rafe somehow at its center. Stopping him wouldn't stop the effect of the curse - Rafe was its tool, not the other way around - but finding him would at least lead to a clearer understanding of what they were dealing with. And the only way to find him was to face the undead Laura.

* * *

"All right," said Wendell, taking charge after they had returned to the relative coziness of the palace. The warmth spell Samantha had cast for them had been short-term. It had also not provided any light. "Obviously we can't put off ignoring the threat from my grandmother's stepmother any longer. We need a plan of action which we can implement immediately."

Samantha transferred the bulk of Lucent's weight to one arm and raised her hand.

"Yes," Wendell acknowledged her, "I realize you cannot involve yourself in any professional capacity, however . . ."

"That's just it," she informed him, interrupting. "I believe I can."

"What?!" Tony demanded, suddenly irritated again. "_Now_ you can? What suddenly changed your mind? Some kind of magical whim?"

"Antony . . ." Wendell began once again, tiredly, only to be interrupted by Wolf this time, who paused long enough in eating a small pheasant he'd taken from the remains of the feast still lying out in the banquet hall to say,

"Oh, shut up, Tony! What difference does it make why she'll help us?"

"What's to say that she won't change her mind again as soon as we get there?" his father-in-law demanded.

_Which is really a fair question, _she thought. And she should answer it, too, if only she knew . . .

"WOLF! ANTONY!" shouted Wendell, interrupting her thoughts. "STOP IT THIS INSTANT!"

Both men quieted and looked at the king, Tony somewhat sheepishly, Wolf full of defiance.

"But . . ." he said.

"Quiet!" ordered Wendell, glaring at the half-wolf. He waited a moment. "All right," he finally said. "Now, Samantha, would you please explain what caused you to change your mind?"

She half-expected Tony to renew his criticism, but he remained silent, whether from politeness or from Wendell's look of 'I dare you to make a sound' she couldn't tell.

The king's sudden outburst had surprised her. She cleared her throat to stall for time, although she didn't dare hesitate too long - they would only start in arguing again. The trouble was, she had no idea how to phrase what she needed to say. How do you tell someone their brother has been cursed?

"I've 'changed my mind' because it appears that this incident is related to the prophecy and to the curse it mentions," she began.

"How?" demanded Tony.

"Antony!" came the king's sharp voice, "Let her speak!"

Samantha would have preferred to answer questions rather than give a speech, and wished Wendell would be quiet himself now.

"Because Wolf's brother is somehow involved," she answered.

"What does my brother have to do with . . ."

"Wolf!" snapped Wendell, obviously expecting to render Wolf as silent as he had Tony, but to Samantha's satisfaction, the half-wolf just growled at him.

"Huff puff! How are we supposed to find anything out if we can't ask a question?! I want to know what Rafe has to do with the prophecy."

"So far as I can tell, he may have somehow caused the curse to be invoked." At their blank stares, she went on, "Gwendolyn mentioned someone you recognized as your brother being the person who incited her brother towards a hatred of half-wolfs. Now, he's responsible for the release of a prisoner who's a known wolf-hater. Tell me - you must know him since he's your brother - is this normal practice for him? To aid in the destruction of his own kind?"

The dwindling remains of bird carcass (his second since they'd returned) in Wolf's hands did not in any way diminish his reaction of anger followed by resignation.

"No," he admitted, though reluctantly,"No, he'd never do that."

_Well, there's no love lost there,_ she thought, trying to keep her thoughts on the subject. It was rather hard to do while watching Wolf eat. She had no idea how he could possibly consume all he was eating right now, not after the immense feast they'd all so recently eaten. Even Lucent was no longer interested in the food, and Lucent _loved_food. Her mind wanted to go off by itself to comtemplate the metabolism of half-wolfs, to speculate on why Virginia seemed so unaffected by the baby she was carrying (neither eating as her husband did or appearing to be starved). It took an act of will to force herself back on task.

"Would you say it would take something quite powerful to make him behave that way?" she asked.

"He'd_never_ do it," Wolf repeated.

"Not even with Laura's magical influence?" she inquired.

He glanced guiltily at Virginia and then quickly away. His wife took his hand and murmured, "She couldn't make you do anything, remember?"

"But Virginia . . ."

"It doesn't matter how difficult it was for you," Samantha interjected. "It was Laura's will that you destroy Virginia and you were able to resist her. I would assume your brother could resist her as well if she called for the destruction of all half-wolfs, or is he weaker than you in this respect?"

"No," he answered quickly. "If anything it would be easier for him."

"Then I am assuming that whatever is controlling him is extremely strong; able to wield far greater magic than can Laura. Not that I suspected Laura was involved in whatever is taking place in the Eighth Kingdom. She's always been rather provincially concerned with the Fourth Kingdom alone. Nor does she care about the affairs of half-wolfs in one way or the other."

"She wanted to take over _all_ the kingdoms, not just mine," Wendell pointed out.

"Yes, but it was an afterthought. What she really wanted was _your_ throne. It was your family she wanted revenge against."

"Well, she might be against half-wolfs suddenly because of the pardon," suggested Wolf.

"It's possible, but that still doesn't explain how she was able to control your brother. No, I suspect the curse is at work here; has been at work for quite some time, in fact."

"Why would the curse want the half-wolfs destroyed?" asked Tony.

She looked up sharply at him.

"I don't know," she admitted. "To sew discord? Having the rest of the prophecy would certainly help."

"Well, we are not going to go back to get it," declared Virginia. "Which reminds me, how could Wolf's brother have set off the curse? I thought we did that ourselves."

"Did you?" she asked. "From what you told me before, it sounded rather like the curse was in effect before you ever arrived at the ruin." She looked up, preparing to support her theory in more detail, but Helen interrupted her.

"Then does Simon's brother have the remainder of the prophecy?" she inquired. Her use of Wolf's proper name made Samantha flinch, though Wolf ignored it equitably enough. Still, the woman had been told more than once that half-wolf names were to be kept strictly within the family. Why was she so intent on flaunting the custom, Samantha wanted to know?

Something about the name-custom itself tugged at her own memory. It was quite ancient, practiced among several peoples. She had been surprised to find the half-wolfs among them, realizing only belatedly that it explained why they always seemed to be referred to as "wolf" in the history books. Still . . . _NO! I need to stay focused on what we're discussing!_

"Wolf's brother in possession of the prophecy?" she repeated. "It's possible. I would presume he was at the ruin in advance of Wolf and Virginia. Wolf, you stated before that you were unable to detect any scent whatsoever there, as if they had all been magically masked."

"But how would he have known . . ." Tony began, then slapped himself on the forehead. "He was there! At the wedding! We _told_ him about the prophecy!"

Wolf growled in chagrin.

"Oooh, then he did go there," he moaned. "It's just like him, to have to get there before me. I should have known that would happen!"

The discussion degenerated quickly into Wolf bemoaning his own incompetence, with Virginia and Gwendolyn (and Samantha herself as well, she had to admit), trying to talk him out of it. It was obvious from Wendell's, Tony's, and Helen's reactions that they felt he should have been more careful around his brother, and they hadn't cared to have pointed out to them that they were equally at fault. They spent the next fifteen minutes trying to make excuses for themselves (that didn't include an excuse for Wolf), until Samantha was ready to tear her hair out.

_Nothing is getting done! _she thought furiously. _We're going to stand here and argue and argue and argue until the sun comes up and goes down again and Laura gains more and more power!_

With that thought, as if to undescore it, the framed portrait of Wendell which hung at the end of the hall abruptly crashed to the floor. Lucent leapt from her arms, where he had been sleeping through the heated chatter of the humans around him, and dived beneath the nearest divan. For a moment no one spoke.

Finally, Tony said, "Tell me that was just an accident."

Wolf scratched his temple and whined.

"Oh, Virginia, you need to go back to New York right away," he said. Suiting action to words, he then tried to drag her towards the door to the dungeons where the mirror was kept.

"No," she said, yanking her arm away from him. "I am not going to go sit somewhere and be 'safe' while you go off and fight some evil witch! You want me to go to New York? Then you have to come with me."

He glanced guiltily at Samantha.

She shrugged. Although she would have liked for Wolf to help her, not only because he'd stood up to Laura before, but because it would be so much easier to counter one half-wolf with another, he was obviously not going to refuse his wife. _And I can't blame him, not really,_ she thought. It was much more important that Virginia return to New York. She would be more difficult for Laura to reach in another dimension, regardless of what Helen had said. For a few moments, as the couple left the room_ (finally someone is taking some action, at least!)_ she was a bit irritated with Virginia for being so stubborn. But those few moments were abruptly ended by Helen's cloying voice.

"When shall we leave?" the older woman wanted to know.

_"I_ plan to leave in the morning," Samantha informed her, stressing the singular pronoun.

"Oh, you can't mean alone."

_Well, certainly not dragging you along,_ she thought uncharitably. Out loud she said, "I was going to ask Gwendolyn to accompany me. The effects of the swamp I can handle, but I'd prefer to have the fairies there as my allies - or at least have them remain neutral - and they'll be more likely to help another fairy."

"Certainly I'll help you," the girl agreed, though a bit naively, she thought.

"That's it?" the old woman demanded. "What about the king? Isn't he going?"

"King Wendell must remain here to run his kingdom. His advisors are all away for the holiday."

"Unfortunately true," Wendell agreed. "But you're welcome to take whatever you need. And if you haven't reappeared by the time my advisors return, I shall assume the worst and mount a secondary attack."

Helen pursed her lips as if she tasted something sour.

"Well, I suppose we three women will have to do," she announced, skipping past inquiring if Tony would go. For some reason this irked Samantha even more, though she was hardly surprised at the woman's self-invitation.

"I'm afraid you're not going," she said, bracing herself for the inevitable argument.

"Of course I am. Do you know what that woman did to my daughter?"

_Who doesn't?_

"Oh, like you really cared," said Tony angrily, beginning what threatened to be a long and heated argument about the evil queen's upbringing and Tony's failings as a husband. With a flash of inspiration, Samantha backed away from it, occupying herself with fishing a protesting Lucent out from under the crushed red velvet settee. _Go to bed now,_ she told herself. _With any luck, she'll sleep through your leave-taking._

She nodded silently to Wendell - Gwendolyn was too caught up in listening to the 'conversation' - and disappeared around a turn in the hallway.

Her rooms had never seemed so far away, but she made herself keep walking. _Just a little farther,_ she told herself. She wanted to talk to Lucent, too, but decided it might be best to remain silent until she was safely behind her own closed door. When it finally snicked shut behind her, she let out a long sigh and leaned back against it, closing her eyes. Not that she could see anything anyway in the pitch black of the room, she thought. It was then that she felt Lucent stiffen.

Her eyes snapped open and she blinked against the candlelight. Wasn't it dark? she wondered, looking around warily. Across the room, seated on the green chaise-lounge, was a red-haired woman of about her own age. She smiled. The hairs on the back of Samantha's neck stood up.

"Oh, do come in, Samantha," the apparition told her, for that was what it was. With her necromantic training, she could see the tell-tale sign, a slight translucency that wasn't immediately noticeable unless one looked for it. Cautiously, she approached, but although Lucent remained alert, he did not appear to be alarmed. She took that for a good sign.

"I need to talk with you," the woman continued. "About my mother."

Tom ran in the darkness, the rhythm of his footsteps muffled by the packed snow on the path. In the distance he could hear an occasional car passing on Fifth Street, interrupting the faint electric buzz of an ailing streetlight. He'd continued his early morning jog despite the shortened daylength, not caring what might lurk in the shadows of the trees. If asked, he would have invented some rational excuse for why his behavior was perfectly normal, but he knew, realistically, that it was not. He was actively seeking the shadows, and he knew it. He wanted to find what lay there, to make it accountable for what it had done. He wanted to make it pay.

Of course, he had no concrete idea of how he would go about exacting revenge if the opportunity he sought should arise, and this he also knew.

The coin he'd found lying in the snow the day he'd seen Virginia Wolf and her husband disappear weighed heavily in his coat pocket. Without conscious thought his fingers closed around it, holding it like a talisman. The possibilities of which it hinted buoyed him; gave him hope in a little corner of his soul that more might be possible than he'd ever dreamed - but at the same time, his rational mind dismissed this notion as fantasy.

_You saw what you wanted to see, _he told himself. _The coin is fake - anyone might have dropped it. But it's real gold_ he countered haltingly. _Is it?_ came the reply. _Are you absolutely sure?_

He pulled it out of his pocket with his black-gloved hand, but it was still too dark to see. He stopped.

To the right a flicker of bluish light caught his eye momentarily. He blinked and looked up, but saw nothing. With a start, he realized he was in the same place in the park that he'd witnessed the couple's disappearance. Squeezing the coin, he left the path, seeking the light's source.

_It was just a headlight,_ his inner voice of reason insisted._ But there's no street in that direction,_ he countered. _A reflection, then_, came the explanation, followed by,_ A reflection off of what?_

He'd gone maybe half the distance to the copse of tangled branches when he heard them. The voices weren't loud, but in the relative quiet of the park they were quite easy to recognize, especially since he'd been half-expecting them anyway. Their words were immaterial and ordinary: "It's almost daylight, let's hurry and get back to the apartment," but he suspected, now more than ever, that Virginia and her husband were anything but. He waited a little while, until they'd walked a few yards away from where he waited in the dark, then cautiously made his way through the thicket towards the place from which they'd come.

The sight of the portal shocked him, although he'd been expecting to find it. Though it was nothing more than a door-sized area where the background of trees was somewhat blurry, it gave him the shivers._Odd,_ he thought. He'd been so anxious to believe in its existence, fighting the side of himself given to rational explanations, that he'd expected to feel jubilant at the discovery. But, for the moment, all he felt was fear. He stood motionless for a moment, still in the thicket cover, forcing himself to breathe, and as he stood there, the portal began to glow.

Instinctively, Tom crouched low, but though the frightened part of him begged to run away, he fought it, watching with wondering eyes as the light reached a crescendo and a figure stepped through. For an instant, the light from the portal held him in silhouette, then it flickered out. In the half-moment, all Tom could make out was a man, tall and rangy but faceless, dressed in a long cloak. He paused in the darkness, glancing furtively about. Then, to Tom's horror, he appeared to sniff the air like a dog seeking a scent and finding it, before gliding gracefully away.

The portal itself remained open. For a long while Tom remained still, staring at it, but it didn't seem to change. Though he was conscious of a deep fear within himself of approaching the doorway, he was unable to will himself to simply walk away, either. Slowly, he forced himself to walk forward.

Unfortunately, there was little to be discovered even in close proximity to the phenomenon. It seemed to bend the light in an odd way, but that was all. He wanted to touch it, to verify its nature, but his senses were all screaming for him to _run,_ run away before it was too late, before someone or some_thing_ else came through. It was all he could do to hold his ground. He realized then that he was also holding his breath.

He let it out, and took a deep breath, and then another. _What am I afraid of?_ he suddenly wondered. _What could possibly happen?_ He knew the answer: _Many things: Pain, suffering, death. But do I care?_

An inner calm came over him. What did it matter, he thought? None of those was worse than the shadow of a life in which he was presently trapped. If death came, he would take it as a release, not a trial. Almost eagerly, he plunged his hand up to the elbow into the vortex.

The result was decidedly anticlimactic. It felt rather like sticking his hand in cool water. He pulled it back, unharmed, and also dry. Then, with a shrug, he stepped through.

* * *

The swamp was oddly warm, as if the season outside its reaches had no power to touch it. Helen stumbled as her foot caught in a bramble, though neither the young fairy girl or the snippet of a witch turned to help her. Not that she'd needed the help, but even so she felt the slight. She knew the necromancer hadn't wanted her to come along at all.

Fortunately, the woman's superior had known that she absolutely _had_ to be present. Helen got some smug satisfaction from seeing the witch's face when she'd appeared that morning bearing the news. Her eyes were swollen - _had she actually cried over it?_ she wondered - and her complexion was more pallid than usual. Idly she wondered what had made Samantha so adverse to her company. After all, it wasn't as if Helen had done anything to alienate her - well, perhaps except insist that she keep that nasty beast of a cat locked up at all times, but that was entirely for Roland's peace of mind, not her own. _Thank God the cat didn't come along on this adventure!_ she thought. _Perhaps that superior of hers insisted on that, too!_ Of course, Roland was not with them either, since Helen couldn't have imagined bringing him on such a potentially dangerous trip. Unfortunately, she'd had no choice but to leave Roland in the company of Wendell. Not that she mistrusted the king; it was just that he was entirely too chummy with her coarse-mannered son-in-law, in whose care the cat had been left.

Thinking about Tony only depressed her more, however. She had no idea how the louse had managed to ingratiate himself with the king, and the situation irked her, as much as she tried on the surface to pretend it didn't. _Not that it matters,_ she thought viciously. _He's showing his true cowardly self, now. Surely King Wendell can see that._ The fact that Samantha's superior had decreed that Tony stay behind didn't bother her in the slightest. _What real man would obey such a thing, letting three women go off by themselves on something like this?_ she wanted to know. It nearly made her ill to think of the show he'd obviously put on for their benefit about wanting to go regardless, making that Samantha - this Samantha - virtually _order_ him to stay put or else.

A mosquito buzzed in her ear and she swatted absently at it, looking down and noticing then how her shoes had become caked with mud. _What_ she put up with to save the world . . .

No, that wasn't quite the truth, she recalled. She hadn't come along to save the world; surely the world could save itself if it needed to. No, Helen had come for one reason and one reason only: to make this Laura person answer for what she'd done to her daughter. Whatever she thought of her companions, she needed to stow it until their joint goal had been reached.

A quick glance showed her that Samantha's shoes were as dirty as her own, although the fairy girl's were not. Gwendolyn's wings had been fluttering with what Helen thought was nervousness, but now she was not so sure. Her feet certainly_ looked_ as if they were touching the ground . . .

She shrugged and returned her attention to the wizard. The silence was simply oppressing. Surely there was no danger of alerting the evil witch to their presence simply by talking; she imagined the old bag must know they were coming anyway, through a crystal ball or something.

"You know, when we get back, I could have some of Wendell's servants arrange a special treatment for you," she offered to Samantha, smiling. They'd need to get along at least until this crisis was over, and a peace offering of some kind seemed to be in order. Helen didn't really think she should be the one to make it, but she could be diplomatic as well as the next person. She was, however, not prepared for the look of total bewilderment the necromancer shot her.

"Oh, I've visited all the _best_European spas," she went on. "I'm extremely familiar with the treatments they use, and they're quite wonderful, I assure you. They're capable of bringing out some measure of beauty in even the _plainest_ women."

"What?"

"Really, there is this special formula that Lars - he was my beauty therapist the last time I went - insisted would give body to even the limpest hair. Naturally I didn't need it, but I'm sure I could recall the ingredients for you."

"Exactly what does this have to do with our mission here?" Samantha demanded, whirling on her.

Helen was completely taken aback.

"Well, nothing," she answered indignantly. "I wasn't aware that we weren't _allowed_ to talk about anything else!" A glance at the fairy girl told her the little slip was amused, though she couldn't think of why. Helen hadn't found any of it remotely funny. But as they walked on, it slowly dawned on her that maybe Samantha was a bit sensitive about her looks - or rather her lack of them, she amended. She decided to try again.

"You know, dear," she began, "You really should look at the bright side of things. You're far more fortunate than many women your age. I mean, think about it - at least you still have your teeth."

Gwendolyn coughed and Helen looked over at her, annoyed. "Cover your mouth, dear," she instructed. "I know this is the middle ages, but it's never too soon to learn proper manners."

"Let's just be quiet for the rest of the way, shall we?" asked Samantha in a tone that did little to hide the irritation behind it.

"Fine. If that's what you want." Helen was tired of trying to be helpful. Obviously the wizard-woman had been born too low on the social scale to appreciate the help she'd been offered. _Well,_ thought Helen uncharitably,_ it's just lucky for you that you had that magical talent to fall back on._ She could just imagine the drudgery such a person would have to endure otherwise.

Her thoughts were interrupted as their destination came into view. Ahead stood a tiny cottage - _well, perhaps hovel would be a more appropriate word,_ she thought - leaning crookedly to one side, as if half of it had sunk into the mire that surrounded it. The effect was not helped by the asymmetrical pane of glass set into the door. Samantha made a curt gesture towards some things sunken partway into a pool of green slime. With a shock, she realized they were mirrors, stacked at a crazy, nearly upright angle, themselves burdened with nearly as much algae as the pool in which they lay. As if by a unanimous unspoken decision, the three women came to a halt.

"Gwen," began Samantha, "I know we haven't had any trouble with the swamp fairies or the half-wolf so far, but even so I think you're the best choice to stand guard. If we don't return within three hours, or if there is any kind of trouble, go back to Wendell's and let them know."

The fairy bit her lip and nodded. Privately, Helen wondered what the dainty thing could possibly do if one of the men showed up, but she wasn't about to go opening her mouth to Samantha about it now. Obviously the woman had no intention of listening to anything she had to say anyway! She pressed her own lips together in a pinched expression she'd never have condoned if she'd seen herself in the mirror and waited while the wizard finished giving the girl her instructions. Then, together, they approached the door.

As Samantha's hand turned the knob, Helen thought she heard a whisper, although she could make out no words. But as the door swung open, she realized she must have been mistaken. The little house was empty.

Helen stepped inside first, her lip curled in distaste at the sight of the dust and cobwebs, although beneath that everything seemed orderly enough. _Well, it would have to be,_ she thought. _The whole house is no bigger than a good-sized closet!_

Samantha hung back, still outside the door, but she was silent, at least. Helen didn't feel like being ordered around. She surveyed the kitchen equipment critically, wondering when that dwarf they'd talked about had last used it. It did at least looked as if he'd washed up before leaving, even if the dust had taken over since then.

What appeared to be a copper aspic mold in an interesting shape caught her eye. She picked it up from where it lay propped against the wall on a small table near a basin. As she did, a small cloud of dust rose and then fell in slow motion, drifting down off the table like grey snow. The mold was in the shape of a wolf's head, mouth open in a toothy snarl. She shivered, absently turning it over to hide her discomfort. On the back, her own reflection stared back at her, distorted by the hollows and ridges in its surface.

_Old._

Her own heart thudded in her breast, loudly, as she stared at the rippling image. Surely, it was not . . . it couldn't be . . . it had to be the curved shape of the mold doing that, like a funhouse mirror, she thought reasonably.

_Old._

Well, she hadn't thought she was still a teenager any more, of course. After all, she had a grown daughter, or would have if . . .

Tears clouded her eyes. _It wasn't fair,_ she thought. _It really wasn't fair that Virginia got to see her again and I didn't. My baby, she was my baby . . ._

Her face crumpled, and through the watery tears she saw the skin on her face crinkle up, like crepe paper, the lines in it radiating away from the corners of her eyes, now black holes of eyeliner and mascara against her parchment face.

_Old._

Her granddaughter was grown, too. And pregnant. With Helen's great-grandchild. _No, it couldn't be,_ she thought. _Not already._

_Yes, old,_ the whisper inside her insisted.

_But where did the time go? It hasn't been that long . . ._

_Christine is dead. Dead and buried. Like Jamieson. They're both dead._

_Nooo . . ._

* * *

There was something not at all right about the house. Its wrongness screamed silently at Samantha from within the open door. She watched in trepidation as the old woman tore briskly into the lair's depths, and waited for a trap to snap shut. That was what it felt like, she decided, and also what it was: A lair. The parlor of a mighty spider, no longer really mortal: Laura the witch.

Still, nothing untoward seemed to happen to Helen, and after a moment, Samantha followed her inside. After all, they had come here to face the witch; to defeat her, and there was no way they could accomplish their goal by retreating.

She glanced around, examining the walls, the furniture, the ceiling, the floor, and everywhere the ubiquitous dust.

_The dust . . ._

It had been less than six months since Virginia had found Acorn living here. It was not really enough time for such an accumulation; not enough time for the cobwebs to hang as thickly as they did from the rafters, not in this climate. Mildew would be appropriate, and Samantha could detect its distinctive scent beneath that of the dust, but the dust itself was not at all natural. She half-held her breath and looked up, a movement to her right catching her eye.

Helen had excavated what looked like a metal wolf's mask from beneath the grey blanketing, and was staring inside it, transfixed. Curiously, Samantha looked down at what it contained, but saw nothing. It was then she realized that the older woman was staring at her own reflection.

Disgust filled her. She'd put up with the woman's infernal vanity for the entire journey, and now that they were here, inside the witch's den where a single mistake could get them both killed or worse, the old hag couldn't think of anything but her own face! Why was she supposed to come along? Was it some kind of punishment?

_Well, don't I deserve it, really?_ she thought. _I've come all the way out here with no real plan, after all. The others all trust me to save them. I'm the necromancer – who better to deal with Laura the undead? But I can't; I'm useless. Christine knew that. Who better to send to die with me than a narcissistic old woman? At least this way Tony will have a little more time to help Wendell come up with a better plan . . ._

Her face flushed with embarrassment as she visualized Tony's reaction to her failure. _Silly,_ she thought. _You aren't even going to be around when he finds out about it, so what difference does it make? And why do you care, anyway?_

The pan Helen held glinted in the lamplight and Samantha saw her own warped reflection looking back at her. She looked nothing like the magnificent Christine; no wonder Helen had considered her lacking. No, she could not even dream about the future: One, she was certain to die here anyway, and two, she was only kidding herself if she thought she could compete with someone like that. Maybe she should just give up and go back – at least she might save Gwen that way.

_No, I have to at least try . . ._

At the door to the cellar, she stopped abruptly. Her thoughts, the self-doubt – whose was it? She wasn't entirely sure. Certainly, she'd doubted her abilities before (and always known she'd never win a beauty contest), but it had never been this debilitating. _Maybe there's a deeper meaning to Helen's being so absorbed with herself right now, too,_ she thought. _But how do I fight this? I'm not even sure it's an attack! And Helen is worse than useless . . ._

It occurred to her all of a sudden that she'd allowed Helen to accompany here – _and forced Tony to stay away! _– on the single recommendation of Christine. Her shade had seemed friendly - a warm and congenial woman with a wry sense of humor - but was she truly as reformed in death as she'd seemed? Suppose . . .

The blood drained from Samantha's face, making her feet feel like lead. Christine had been Laura's handmaiden. And she, Samantha, had been led neatly into her trap.

Her hand, poised to open the cellar door, started to shake and she quickly snatched it back. There was no way she could defeat the ancient witch; after all, she was so lacking in real experience as to seem laughable. The guild laws protected the general citizenry, yes, but they also weakened any defense their own members might have had by their strict restraining of natural abilities. Even in Laura's youth, she'd never been subject to that kind of confinement. Now, with the ages upon her and her arcanely achieved immortality, she was even more powerful. Too much so for Samantha, with no one but a foolish old woman as her ally. Barely able to blink back the tears, she turned away. If she hurried away, some of them might yet survive.

"Do they look like my mother's hands to you?"

The incongruous question, placed in a querulously teary voice jarred Samantha's thoughts, as did having one of Helen's beringed hands shoved peremptorily into her face.

"What?" she asked dully.

"I can't be that old, not yet," the old woman. "Not like my mother when . . . she was . . ."

Tears overflowed her eyes, mixing with the heavy black mascara to run in twin black rivers down her sallow cheeks. "She looked . . ." Helen audibly choked, then continued hoarsely, " . . . in her casket . . ."

A wave of pity washed over the wizard and she reached out to take one of Helen's hands in hers, to lead her quickly out of the witch's house, but at the last moment, Helen pulled them both back, her brow wrinkling as she inspected the liver-spotted parchment skin critically.

"At my debut, all the young men fought to dance with me," she remarked in a small, lost voice. "I had my pick of them. Of all the debutantes in the city, I was the fairest."

Her words fell into the dusty silence of the cottage. _The fairest one of all . . ._

Stunned, Samantha gasped

_Could it really be that simple?_ she wondered._ Surely not, but yet. . ._

She remembered Virginia's tale then of what she'd found in the cellar of this place; of what Samantha had expected to find, given what she knew about _that_ kind of magic. A vague plan began to form in her mind . . .

_Yes,_she thought, _I'll need that._ Taking it would be no real trouble; Wendell had assured them they were free to use anything he possessed to eliminate his old enemy. The logistics of handling it were something else again, as was what she'd have to do. And although she'd once thought herself strong enough and realistic enough to accept her own shortcomings, now she wasn't so sure. She'd been responsive enough to the magic of Laura's suggestions, even if she could recognize them for what they were now. Not that she was foolish enough to think she'd entirely conquered the inner fears to which the whispers spoke; she could still hear them well enough.

Across the room, Helen collapsed into a chair, still weeping and absorbed by the sight her own hands. _No help there,_ thought Samantha, though she doubted the old woman could really help her with what she had to do now even were she totally unaffected. She was on her own, and would have to wait until she'd reached the cellar floor to really begin. She took a deep breath and swallowed, thinking her course of action through carefully. Then, once more, she reached for the knob.

The door swung outward, and with it surged the sweet, foetid odor of death. Reflexively, Samantha caught her breath and, with the ghost of the hand gesture her instructor had taught her as an apprentice, banished the foulness in the air. The spell required little thought; it was of the very basic sort, taught in the first week to apprentice necromancers. Still, she ground her teeth against the knowledge it brought: Laura was truly of the undead. Up until then she hadn't been entirely sure whether this was the case or whether Laura had extended her own life by magical means. Unfortunately, it meant she would be all that more difficult to overcome.

_Didn't it?_

She wasn't sure. Before, her plan had seemed a good one. But, as she placed her hand upon the damp, lichen-covered stone of the walls and began her descent, now she wasn't so sure. Too many things could go wrong; there were too many things of which she was ignorant. And even though she knew, rationally, that Laura was feeding her insecurities, she could no longer distinguish between unfounded fears and genuine concern. It was all she could do to force herself to place one foot before the other as she slipped deeper into the tomb.

At the foot of the stairs, she stopped. A miasma of fog trailed along the earthen floor, surrounding the bier in the center of the crypt. Laid out upon it were Laura's blackened and mummified remains, drawing her eyes with a helpless fascination. The corpse did not move, but lay as still as its death would suggest. Yet, the whispers in her mind grew more insistent:

_It will never work, never work, the plan is no good, I'm no good, I can't, it won't . . ._ The negativity filled her mind, paralyzing her. With an effort, she looked away from the body, forcing herself to notice the greenish phosphorescence of the lichens which illuminated the chamber. They covered the walls like so much moss, broken only in places by the large number of mirrors leaning against them, stacked three and four deep, surrounding the central casket like so many sentries.

_Mirrors._Laura had been a Master of mirror magic. How could she, Samantha, ever hope to defeat her with one? It just wasn't possible. They were doomed.

_Stop it!_ she told herself, knowing – hoping -- her doubts were unfounded. _But what if . . ?_

_No! Don't think!_

A small part of her brain responded to the words; quietly, as an echo:_Become._

It was what Snow White had told Virginia when she'd had to come to this same place.

_Become._

With a thought she invoked the conjuration.

The familiar prescience that always gripped her during major spell-casting reassured her. It would work; at least the conjuration would. She could almost feel the molecules in the noxious atmosphere of Laura's tomb rearrange themselves, parting the way for the object of major power that she would need. She reached out to where it would come to rest; her touch would confirm its solidity; confirm her ability to do what needed to be done. It was then she felt it being yanked away from her.

In her mind, Laura laughed, a dry, brittle cackling like chalk on slate.

_Did you really think you could bring such a thing here without my leave? I permitted it! Am I not the mistress of mirrors? Should I not at least gain some small restitution from the House of White? What better to start with than a replacement for the mirror I was forced to smash all those years ago._

To Samantha's chagrin the Mirror of Truth materialized on the opposite side of the chamber, among a deep stack of other, older mirrors. Slowly, her heart wildly beating, she circled the casket, keeping one eye at all times upon its occupant. Yet though the corpse remained still, giving no outward evidence that its owner was not entirely gone, the whispers in Samantha's mind never ceased. Pride, confident superiority, and an almost pitying dismissal of her own powers as raw luck undermined her.

_I'm thinking again,_ she told herself. _I shouldn't_. But she couldn't seem to help herself. The short distance she needed to travel seemed to go on endlessly, as if she were moving in slow motion, but gradually she found herself staring at her own reflection in the oval glass. All the while, though, she could feel Laura in her brain, waiting like a spider.

Samantha took a deep breath, cast a position spell to keep the mirror where it was – so Laura could not whisk it away once again – and reached out to it once more. Too late she noticed the frame on the neighboring mirror. The coiled and intertwined snakes wavered and writhed. In horror, she jerked her hand away, but not before one of the small, shiny black heads nipped her on the finger.

In her reflection in the glass framed by the writhing serpents, she saw blood well up in a dark bubble where her skin had broken. Transfixed, she stared at it, barely noticing Laura's triumphant cackle. There was something familiar about the injury, something she should recognize, but she seemed unable to focus properly upon it.

_You've been bitten by an asp, _the voice in her head informed her._ It's poisonous, of course. _

_Of course,_ she thought, somehow unsurprised.

_You were far too easy,_ the insidious whisper continued, _Go back to your teachers, child. Go back and hide in their robes – Oh! That's right, you can't. You're out of time, aren't you?_ The dry, dead laughter came again. _If you had built up a resistance as I have done, things might have been a bit more interesting._

"Resistance?" asked Samantha. She turned to look directly at the rotting dead thing on the dias. Still there was no outward evidence of the presence she felt in her mind. "You took arsenic."

_Arsenic is common,_ was the reply. _Too many use it as an aid to beauty. Other, more potent poisons produce more potent effects, provided one knows how to control them – with the proper kind of magic._

Her arm already numb and beginning to swell, Samantha clutched at what she knew might be her last opportunity. She didn't stop to think, her mind had grown fuzzy, though a part of her thought it odd the poison would work quite _that_ fast.

"I suppose I'll make a good-looking corpse, then," she quipped, forcing her thickening tongue around the words.

_The poisons don't work miracles, you know._

"I could find out," she babbled on, "It was a Truth Mirror you used to ask if anyone was more beautiful than you, wasn't it? I could ask this one."

She felt rather than heard the amusement at her suggestion. It was getting quite warm in the cellar; she felt herself break out in a sweat. Her vision swam, but she faced in what she hoped was the Truth Mirror's direction and spoke,

"Mirror, mirror, in the gloom,  
Who's the fairest in this room?"

"Is that a trick question?" asked a voice, in quality much like a boy nearing adolescence. "There is only one living in this room. . ."

_Anticipating your departure a bit, isn't he?_

" . . . so naturally you, who has asked the question, are the fairest in it."

"**WHAT????**"

Samantha's legs trembled; it was difficult now to even keep standing, but she saw a movement from the corner of her eye and knew the old witch's corpse had at last risen.

"You're dead, Laura," she said simply. "Look for yourself."

"I'm not . . . Nooooooo!"

Abruptly the sound ceased. Somewhere to Samantha's left came the dull clatter of bones on earth. The dreadful whispering she realized now that she'd heard not only in this house, but for the past few weeks, stopped.

Laura was gone.

Her strength exhausted, Samantha collapsed beside her.


	11. X A Grimm Journey

_Authors' Note:_ A special thank you to Aurendel for her assistance with the scenes set in Germany.

* * *

X - A Grimm Trail

"I'll need to do an ultrasound."

She blanched, but Tom had been expecting that.

"Why?" she finally asked, her voice a bit querulous.

"Because, as I said, your baby appears to be developing more quickly than is usual," he explained again. "With an ultrasound, I can measure its progress more accurately so that we can determine the delivery date."

"I thought it was due the beginning of June."

He sighed.

"We may need to revise that depending on your baby's level of development. The ultrasound will show us that."

She was silent, though he knew it was only because she couldn't immediately think of anything to stall him with.

"If you'll just follow me in here . . ." he instructed as he opened the door to the corridor. _Get them into the room,_ he thought. _One thing at a time._

The slight nag of guilt hung over him although he knew he was doing exactly what he would do with any patient in her situation. At least he hoped it was. Since he'd stepped momentarily through that portal in the park and touched the damp stone walls and cold iron bars on the other side, he'd become fairly obsessed with Virginia and her husband. Yet no matter what wild interpretation his mind insisted on giving it, he couldn't overlook the fact that the both of them were just people. People from a place that shouldn't exist, certainly, but still people. He'd run quite a few medical tests on Virginia; she was as human as he was.That, however, only made her odd reaction to any inquiries he had about her baby even more incomprehensible to him.

Fortunately, he thought, the both of them followed him quite docilely into the ultrasound room. He indicated that she should sit on the exam table.

"When we plan this ahead of time, I usually ask my patients to bring a videocassette," he announced, hoping to relax her with the promise of a reward. "Since you didn't have time to prepare, I have one here you can have." He took it out of the case and slipped it into the VCR.

"What does it do?" asked Wolf - Tom didn't think of him as Simon since Virginia never called him that.

"It'll record this session, so you can take home a movie of your baby." He had to willfully stop himself from explaining the function of a VCR. He wasn't _supposed_ to know they weren't from there, and in any case, they had a perfectly valid New York address (his bills got paid) so they must be somewhat familiar with this dimension.

He felt like he was in the Twilight Zone. Wolf didn't help by continuing to act like any typical father, albeit one who had never heard of ultrasound.

"We can see our baby with it?" he asked, intrigued. "Virginia, isn't that amazing? How does it work?" A sudden sobering thought seemed to occur to him. "It won't hurt Virginia, will it?"

"Absolutely not," Tom assured him. "It's completely painless and harmless to both mother and child." He held up the puck as he continued to explain. "I'll place this on her abdomen and the sound waves it emits will bounce off your baby. The reflection will show up on this screen" - he indicated the small screen on the unit - "and that is what will be recorded on your tape."

"Sound?" For the first time in all their visits, Wolf appeared to be concerned.

Tom thought he knew what was bothering him.

"The sound is far above the range of human hearing," he informed them. "Your baby couldn't possibly be harmed by it."

Husband and wife exchanged looks and, if anything, Wolf seemed even warier.

"Could I hear it first?" he asked.

Tom shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd been asked for such proof. He held out the puck and casually flipped on the machine.

Wolf recoiled, his hands flying to his ears, and to Tom's horror, his eyes flashed a brilliantly surreal yellow-green. The doctor stood staring, dumbstruck, unable to move. Why hadn't he realized it, he wondered, especially after seeing them come out of that portal? The first time he'd seen him, he'd thought he'd turned into a werewolf and there had been that report about one on television that same night? He was only dimly aware of Virginia's presence, with a kind of vague knowledge that she had risen from the exam table, and was saying something, though he had no idea of the content of her words. With fascination he watched as the werewolf lunged for her, helpless to stop him; helpless to save her throat from being savagely torn out . . .

He snapped back to reality, his paralysis gone, realizing only then that he'd been holding his breath.

"Are you sure you're all right?" his patient was asking her husband. Wolf didn't speak, simply nodded and placed a hand on the firm roundness of her swollen stomach. She put her hand over his, then looked up at Tom.

"I think we'll pass on the ultrasound," she said, and turned to the door, pulling her apparently still somewhat dazed husband after her.

"Wait!" he called, desperate that they shouldn't just walk away, though he knew there was nothing professional about his desire to stay in their company. Virginia threw a glance back at him and picked up her pace. "I know about the mirror," he said. "In Central Park."

Her face turned ashen. A look passed between the couple, and they turned back to him in unison, eyes haunted, though while Virginia's held an expression of panicked terror, Tom couldn't help but feel that Wolf reminded him more of a cornered predator.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice low and smooth; menacing.

"Nothing," he answered, too quickly. It wasn't strictly true, although he had no intention of revealing their nature if they chose to ignore him. "Well, knowledge," he amended. "What is the place that it goes, that you're from? Why are you here?"

Wolf growled softly.

"All right, all right," he added hastily. "But at least tell me why you came here to deliver your baby? It couldn't have been because of modern technology or improved medical practice, because every time I've suggested anything, or even asked you any questions - that I would ask any patient of mine, by the way - you've refused. So why?"

To Tom's relief, the predatory gleam in Wolf's eyes faded, to be replaced with a look of confusion. Virginia bit her lip. For a moment everyone was silent.

"You're werewolves . . . ?" he finally asked, hoping to draw them out.

Wolf still appeared confused. Virginia hesitated, then said, "No. Well . . ."

"Virginia's human," declared Wolf.

"Which is why . . . we're here," she finished, as if that explained everything.

"You're saying you're _not_ human?" Tom asked Wolf, incredulously. "But you have to be if she is."

Wolf looked even more confused. He scratched his temple nervously.

"What?" asked Virginia.

Tom took a deep breath.

"This_is_ your baby?" he said, indicating Virginia's belly. "The both of yours, I mean." He didn't wait for their affirmation; they'd given it often enough before when he'd suggested that maybe they'd gotten the conception date wrong. "If you weren't human there's no way you could have gotten her pregnant."

They both blinked as if this were some new concept they'd never considered. Finally Virginia said, "Well, that may be true here, but . . ."

"Look," he said, interrupting her. "You came here for prenatal care for a reason. Since I already know about where you're from and what you are, can it hurt anything for us to talk awhile?"

She still seemed somewhat wary, and then it hit him what she was afraid of; had been afraid of all along – being the main attraction at a freak show; tabloid fodder of the most sensational kind.

"It will be completely private," he assured her quietly, then added, "I think I know what you're worried about. Please believe me that I won't tell a soul."

She still wouldn't have agreed, he could see that in her eyes, but surprisingly, Wolf did.

"Let's talk to him, Virginia," he said softly. "We came here because you needed a human doctor, but you were too afraid to ever tell him anything. Maybe it's our baby's destiny for him to have found out."

Tom led them quietly into his office and shut the door.

Three hours later he was a guest in another office, that of a young man who had been introduced to him as King Wendell, ruler of the Fourth Kingdom, which as far as he could tell was where the portal in the park had led to. Tom's senses were still reeling, not only from the shock of traversing the mirror once again, but from the story Virginia and Wolf had told him. Although they'd called it the "short version," he'd been treated to what he was sure was the complete history of their lives together, Virginia ending the narration with a ". . . so you see our baby couldn't possibly have been conceived any earlier." And although Tom still thought otherwise – Virginia could have easily been pregnant without realizing it before traveling to the Nine Kingdoms – he had virtually stopped listening when she'd explained how Snow White had essentially turned her attitude around. What mattered to Tom was not that this was the same Snow White of the fairy tale, but that she had been dead for some years yet still appeared. Hope grew in him, and the more he tried to squelch it by telling himself it was false hope, the more the other side – the side that wanted to believe in miracles – kept insisting that everything around him proved the possibility existed: Julie could return to him.

* * *

Virginia sat back against the upholstered purple velvet back of the gilded chair as Wolf introduced Dr. Oberon to Wendell, her hand on her baby. Though her fingers felt nothing, inside she felt the near-constant fluttering that had been brought abruptly to her attention during the "ultrasound incident" in the doctor's office. Wolf hadn't been the only one who'd reacted badly to the device; their child had leapt inside her, and settled down much less quickly. Even now it gave her the chills to think of what might have happened if she'd blindly submitted to the routine scan. At least now the baby's activity had returned to a normal level. She smiled. That flutter had been something she'd felt for quite awhile now, yet hadn't associated it with the baby's movements. So some good had come of the incident, at least.

Still, she was not as convinced as Wolf was that the doctor should be told everything, but was unable to think of a good reason why not. Obviously he was a better choice for the delivery than some Nine Kingdoms doctor who had something against half-wolfs, but there was something about him that seemed false to her.

Wendell suddenly interrupted her thoughts by saying, "Oh, Wolf, I have some news. Your aunt sent the missive back two days ago. Congratulations, you're an uncle. Your sister had a boy. And they're both doing fine."

Which reminded Virginia of what Oberon was doing here in the first place –

"Wendell, Dr. Oberon thought it would be a good idea if he could talk with Wolf's aunt. Is there some way we could send a letter asking her to come?"

"Of course," the king replied, but her husband wasn't so sure it was a good idea.

"Oh, Virginia, you know she might not want to come right now, what with my sister's baby being so new and all. It may take a couple of months." He turned to Oberon. "Would that be okay with you, Doc?"

"Hmm?" asked the doctor as if he hadn't even been listening. "Oh, certainly. A month or two, barring any emergency, which I don't foresee happening, should make no difference."

Virginia's suspicions were hardly lessened by his response. If it made no difference, why had he insisted on accompanying them immediately? And why was he paying so little attention? To her further irritation, Wolf had immediately launched into the reason they had come back, which she wasn't sure was a good thing to reveal in front of Oberon.

"We've decided the only way to really find out what Grimm knew is to go to the country he's from," her husband was explaining. "Unfortunately, they speak another language there."

"Oh, yes," Wendell agreed. "The mice."

"Exactly. If we could take a couple of them with us?"

"By all means," Wendell agreed. "Everything here is at your disposal."

The words jolted Virginia out of her qualms about the doctor. The last time she'd heard them was right before they'd left. Right before the others had gone to face the . . . _thing_ she'd found in the cellar of that shack in the swamp.

"Wendell, where is my dad?" she asked suddenly, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Oh," said the king in a voice she really didn't like at all.

"What? What happened to him?"

"Oh, nothing," Wendell added hastily. "Antony is fine. It's Samantha. The Swamp Witch poisoned her, I'm afraid, and there's no known antidote. They came to take her back to the Wizards' Citadel. Antony went with them."

For a moment the room was silent. Then Wendell continued, "She did manage to defeat her before she lost consciousness. If you like you can speak to Gwen. Or your grandmother, I suppose, though she's taken to her rooms ever since then and won't come out."

Virginia did not feel like tackling her grandmother just then and said so. Wendell sent a servant to summon the blue fairy.

"Where exactly is this Wizards' Citadel?" she asked.

"Oh, it's not in any one place, as I understand it," said the king. "Although Wolf could probably explain it better than I could."

_That's right,_ she thought. _Duh! When will I get used to that?_

Her husband looked appropriately sheepish at the reminder.

"Well?" she asked. "Where is it?"

"Wendell's right," he answered. "It moves around. Usually it's on the coast, though."

"It moves around?" she asked, confused. "How? Does it fly?"

"No," he said. "It moves by magic."

"You mean it just disappears in one place and then appears in another?"

"Yes."

"Well, then how do you find it?"

"You're not supposed to. They find you if they want you."

"But . . ."

They were interrupted by Gwen, who arrived with the servant who'd summoned her for the king.

"Ah, Gwendolyn," declared Wendell, "Virginia was asking about Antony and the whole adventure with the Swamp Witch. I thought you'd be able to give her the most comprehensive account of exactly what transpired . . ."

But Gwen wasn't paying any attention to his words. She was staring at Doctor Oberon with a look of utter amazement.

* * *

The blue fairy's astonished expression still stuck in Virginia's mind a week later as she gazed out the window of her and Wolf's hotel room in Hanau, Germany. Snow blanketed the gingerbread of the buildings, which had a vague resemblance to Kissingtown, albeit without the hearts and tourist traps, until her eyes traveled to street level, where the dirty slush from passing traffic made it just one more grimy, boring town on this side of the mirror.

_What had Gwen seen?_ she wondered. The girl had tried to brush off her odd reaction, saying that she was sorry, she'd mistaken him for someone else. The trouble was, it had take her so long to say it. She'd started into the room with a name on her lips, Virginia was certain, halting only when Dr. Oberon had gasped out, "You have wings! Oh, my God! Are they real??" And, now that she'd thought about it some more, Virginia decided that Gwen's reaction to his surprise went far beyond natural bewilderment. She'd been totally confused; as confused as Virginia herself had felt when she'd first found the three trolls in her apartment with her unconscious father.

Yet, as suspicious as she'd been of Dr. Oberon's sudden fascination with the Nine Kingdoms, she couldn't honestly lay the blame for this mystery on him. He had too obviously not known who - or even what - Gwen was. No, whatever it was about him that bothered Virginia, it had nothing to do with Gwen. At least, she thought, he'd come back to New York with no trouble. She'd been a little worried that he'd insist on staying in the Nine Kingdoms forever, after the way he'd eagerly insisted that they take him with them.

"Huff puff, I still think it can't be a coincidence," said her husband from his seat at the small breakfast table.

"What?" she asked.

He looked up from the maps he had spread out in front of him.

"Europe," he explained. "It looks too much like the Nine Kingdoms. Even Gerard thinks so."

Gerard was the German-speaking mouse serving as their translator. Virginia got up and peered over Wolf's shoulder.

"See?" he said. "This 'Italy' here is shaped like a boot – just like the First Kingdom. And this group of islands, here, 'Great Britian' is just where the Sixth Kingdom is. It's not exactly an island, but it's in the same place otherwise. And the Third Kingdom, that's 'Spain', the Fourth Kingdom is 'France' and right now we're in the eastern part of the Fifth Kingdom, 'Germany'. There are even mountains right where the Ninth Kingdom should be and a country there called 'Switzerland'."

"Okay," she said. "But how do you explain the Second Kingdom, then? There's not really a whole country that corresponds to that." Privately, while she thought the coastline did look a slight bit familiar, especially around the Mediterranean, she also thought he was probably analyzing the whole thing way too hard.

"Oh, huff puff!" he exclaimed. "It's not countries, it's the whole thing - it's the same continent, just divided up differently, or not differently in some cases, and called something else!"

"If you say so."

She yawned and felt again the little flutter of the child inside her. The movement wrenched at her heart in a way both similar to and different from the way she felt in Wolf's arms. She put her hand over the baby and noticed Wolf smiling at her.

"You can hear her, can't you?" she asked. Although she hadn't appreciated Samantha's telling them the baby's sex, she didn't doubt the wizard's accuracy.

Wolf placed his hand on hers. "It's full moon tonight," he said.

"Oh, that's right," she agreed.

He stared at her a moment more before drawing her onto his lap and folding his arms around her.

"I never thought I would look forward to full moons," he murmured. "I'm going to miss this when she's born."

"Mmm ..." she said, laying her head against his chest.

"Tired?"

"Not really. Just bored, I guess."

He stroked her hair.

"I've got to get this done so we can start out early in the morning," he groaned. "It shouldn't take too much longer."

She sighed, then sat up.

"I know," she said. "I'll go down and get us something to eat."

"Eat!" he breathed. "Oh! Oh, that's a great idea! But why don't you just call the room service?"

"I need the exercise," she explained. "Just want to stretch my legs."

She got up and put on her coat.

"Okay," he agreed hesitantly. "But it's full moon, remember? You can't stay away too long."

"Don't worry, I'll be right back."

She walked out of the restaurant at the end of the street carrying four orders of veal schnitzel with spaetzle in two neatly folded white paper sacks. Three of the orders were for Wolf. She glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky, the round, white ball of the full moon just visible on the horizon. If Wolf had still been reacting to it she'd have needed to get him six, maybe twelve orders. She wondered vaguely how she was going to deal with that when the time came.

There was just enough daylight left for her to get back to the hotel. She picked her way along the salted cement of the snow-cleared sidewalk, struck again by the juxtaposition of the various ages of building styles which lined the street. Streamlined 1950s designs stood side by side with both the elegant cut-glass and lights of the ultra-modern and with the half-timbered construction of the very old. The effect was eerily like New York overlaid onto Kissingtown – but of course, Hanau was nowhere near as large as New York. Then again, it wasn't as small as Kissingtown, either, she reasoned.

She'd just reached the corner of the hotel when the streetlights came on, startling her momentarily. The flash made her glance at the lamppost across the street; the one in front of the park entrance. It was then that she saw him.

He was tall and bone-thin in a black overcoat, his wild, chestnut-colored hair uncovered. The sight of him took her breath away and plunged her momentarily into total confusion. _Rafe, here?_ she thought. _But that's impossible. No, it must just be someone who resembles him._

Still, the gist of what Wolf had been talking about back in their room came back to her. _Europe and the Nine Kingdoms one and the same?_ she thought. _What if, then . . .__could there be other versions of the people I know here? Another Rafe, or . . . another Wolf?_ She had to know.

His back was to her now; he was turned away from the chill of the wind. _He must be waiting on a bus,_ she thought as she crossed the street towards him. Halfway there she realized how silly she was going to look, whether he turned out to be her brother-in-law's double or not. What was she going to say, she wondered? Where was she supposedly going? But then she thought she'd look even sillier dithering in the middle of the street, so she purposely trudged the rest of the way across. _I'll be going to look at something in that park,_ she decided.

He still had his back to her as she reached the curb. Brazenly, she walked within inches of him, but, not wanting to turn and stare, kept walking towards the park entrance._ I'll get a good look at him on the way back, _she thought, hoping his bus wouldn't come in the meanwhile. If only I were Wolf, I could smell him to see if it's the same. But she thought that at close range his back had looked very like Rafe's. Not that she was intimately familiar with Rafe's back, she had to admit.

There was a stone marker just outside the park. Virginia peered meaningfully at it for a few moments. She'd just begun to wonder if she'd waited too long when she felt rather than heard someone behind her. She turned around.

Rafe stood there, a little half-smile on his face. Phosphorous flecks glittered in his green eyes and she realized he hadn't been turning away from the wind at all. He'd been staring at the moon.

"I wondered when one of you would notice me," he whispered silkily. "How interesting that it was you and not my esteemed brother."

She took a step backward and his hand shot out, grabbing her firmly by the wrist. The bag of food she held plopped to the ground.

"W . . . what d'you want from us?" she asked shakily.

"He needs to be away from you for a little while, I think," came the reply. "After that . . . well, the smell of that food is making me_very_ hungry."

* * *

Wolf blinked. The light over the table, never overly bright to begin with, dimmed momentarily, before recovering and then brightening too much. Again.

"Stupid electric lights," he muttered, but he rubbed his eyes tiredly. The heat seemed to be malfunctioning too, he thought. The room was getting too warm for comfort; he was starting to sweat. He blinked again and tried to focus. Gerard the mouse swam into view. He stared back at the wolf with terror in his eyes. Wolf's stomach growled.

"What?" he demanded of the mouse irritably.

"Ah . . . nothing," replied the mouse hastily. Too hastily. "That is . . . your eyes, they . . ."

"What about them?" the wolf growled.

"Ah . . . um . . ." blabbered Gerard, then, as if an idea suddenly occurred to him, he said, "Shouldn't Virginia have come back by now?"

Wolf gasped. He'd become engrossed in a story he was reading about the last heir to the throne of Austria and how his father had refused to name him king because he'd married an 'unsuitable woman.' Then they'd both been killed and it had started a world-wide war. It had sounded more like something that happened in the Nine Kingdoms than here, he'd thought. But he'd forgotten about the time. He looked up.

The full moon shone through the glass of the windowpanes with a golden-silvery light. Wolf stared back in awe of it, the purity of light, the beauty of how it reflected in everything, lit everything with a luminous halo of pure silver. The light caressed him, her touch feathery soft, kissing his eyelids, his nose, his lips, his throat. His breathing deepened; he felt himself burning inside, burning with desire for . . .

"Virginia."

_Oh, no, where did she go?_ he wondered. _To get some food, but it shouldn't be taking this long, she said she'd be right back, she knew it was full moon tonight and that she had to stay near me, she wouldn't go off, she wouldn't, no, no, no, no,_"Oh cripes!"

"I have to find her," he muttered, stumbling to the door and flinging it open without a backwards glance at his companion.

Gerard sighed in relief and scurried to a hiding place he'd discovered on his first day at the hotel. Just in case.

* * *

The first thing he noticed in the lobby were the two policemen conversing quietly with the desk clerk. Wolf's initial reaction was to _hide, run away,_ but he forced himself to stay calm. After all, they couldn't possibly be looking for him – no one in this dimension had ever even heard of a half-wolf. He gave a quick swipe to his rear end to make sure his tail was still completely in his pants - _oh, but it's so big now, it'll make too much of a bulge - not to worry, not to worry, you're still wearing your coat, they won't notice_ - and set off across the lobby. The conversation the men were having, carried on in German, remained meaningless to him.

When he was nearly to the door, he realized he should really ask the desk clerk if he'd seen Virginia, or if she'd left a message for him. He steeled himself, trying to calculate how much time he had until the cramps started, and realized he had no way of knowing – his cycle was too mixed up. Virginia's previous presence might delay the effects awhile, or it might bring them on sooner. Still, if she had left a message, he'd need to hear it, not go chasing off after his wild imagination.

With every ounce of willpower he possessed, he strode up to the desk. And waited. The clerk resolutely ignored him, apparently engrossed in a vigorous argument with the police. A small part of him wondered what it was about and if the clerk were about to be arrested. The other part of him hoped not, because it would delay him even further and he was being delayed enough, and what could possibly be so important they couldn't look at him!

He cleared his throat. Loudly. A half-second later he hadn't gotten any reaction, so he banged his hand on the desk.

"Excuse me!" he said.

The clerk and the two policemen looked up.

"One minute," the clerk said in English, then by way of explanation, added, "A woman was just abducted outside."

Wolf froze. A whine started to build in him.

"Oh, no . . ." he exclaimed, panic-stricken.

"_Was ist los?"_ asked one of the policemen.

"_Ich weiss nicht," _the clerk shot back at him, then to Wolf he said, in English, "Sir, what is it? You have knowledge of this?"

"Ohhhh . . ." Wolf couldn't speak. He knew he was dripping sweat, and the twisting in his gut caused by his fear that Virginia was the abductee told him the cramps were imminent. He had to get away, get out of here before that happened. He had to find her.

"Tell us, please," the man pleaded.

"M . . . my wife . . ." he managed to croak out as his eyes darted wildly about, groping for the exit.

"Yes?"

"She didn't come back!" he shouted at them angrily. "She went out to get us dinner and she didn't come back, okay?"

"Sir, please, calm down," said the clerk hastily. "The woman I saw being abducted was in front of the _Schlossgarten,_ across the street. It's unlikely she was even a guest here. How does your wife look? Have you a photo?"

"Um . . . no . . ." A picture of Virginia was not something he carried around. Why would he need one when he could always see her in his mind?

"Well," said the clerk as if he'd thought of something that could end the matter, "unless your wife is pregnant, it couldn't possibly be her."

Wolf snapped. It was as if the information pushed him over the threshold of the change in an instant. Leaving three astonished men in his wake who weren't quite sure what had happened to him - he was gone so quickly - he dashed out the door and across the busy street, too focused on his quest to even hear the horns blaring at him. The discovery of her scent in that spot, where he had expected it to be, did not surprise him, nor did the fear he could detect within it. But the familiar scent mixed with it stopped him. His own brother had taken her, taken his mate. This was not an abduction, he knew. It was a challenge.

* * *

It hadn't even occurred to Virginia to scream until it was too late. One moment she was simply standing on the sidewalk with her brother-in-law, the next he'd fastened one hand over her mouth while the other grasped her arm as he whispered into her ear that she'd better be quiet. She'd been too confused to do anything else; her mind had no time to adjust to the outrageous knowledge that Wolf's brother was here - _How could he be here?_ she'd wondered inanely - and that he, for whatever reason, meant harm to her - _For what? What did I do to him?_ But then, there'd been no time for further thoughts as he'd hauled her bodily over his shoulder - _My baby!_ she panicked, _No, please!_ She must have said something out loud, for he paused a moment to growl menacingly at her, his eyes flashing like an animal's. Silenced, she swallowed as she bent her knees to relieve the pressure. It occurred to her then that he hadn't simply thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, which would doubtlessly have made her easier to carry, but had braced her where her ribcage would take the brunt of her weight. However, the slight hope from that realization left her as he scaled the high wrought-iron fence that surrounded the park. Even at night, the darkness broken only by streetlights nearer the road, her heart quailed as all the ends that could come to her child through his recklessness - _no, let's be honest, Virginia,_ she told herself bitterly, _it's__**your**__recklessness that got you into this_ - flashed before her. Her eyes squeezed shut, she held her breath, her stomach quailing as she felt him jump from the top, letting it out in an involuntary rush as his feet impacted the snow, jarring her.

Then he ran. Away, through the open woods of the park which now was nothing more than an eerie blur of violet, snow-laden tree branches whipping past, he sped, the sound of his footfalls dampened by the snow, which tufted up in little sprays from the passing of his boots. Virginia ground her teeth against the pain in her ribs and hung on tightly. If she fell . . . she didn't want to even think about it.

When he set her down against the flat, cold stone of a building foundation, she sat gasping in great lungfuls of air, her whole body shaking uncontrollably, though not from the cold.

_Run!_ she told herself, but knew it was hopeless. She might gain her feet before he yanked her back down again, but she'd never get any farther and she knew it. She was just too out of breath and too slow now. A single whimper escaped her, but she had no time for more of that, either, as he grabbed her once again and shoved her bodily through a small, deep opening in the stone.

The chute reminded her uncannily of Dragon Mountain, until it ended abruptly in mid-air, launching her into the pitch-black depths somewhere above the cellar floor. She screamed once, a short, high, panicked shriek that was abruptly cut off as she hit the floor, her feet and legs stinging, for she remembered only at the last moment to tuck herself and roll with the impact. Above, she heard Rafe following after; heard the sharp clang of metal as whatever covered the chute banged shut; heard the rasp of his clothing on the slide, then the moment of silence before the landing.

Huddled into a ball on the cold floor, shivering, she made no effort to get up. Tears leaked from her eyes. _Please,_ she thought, _please let this just be a nightmare. Please let me wake up, please! _But a memory came with the thought, of how she'd seen through the curse at the ruined palace, and she knew this time it was all real, all happening to her - worse, happening also to her baby. Chances she might otherwise have taken she passed now, her body being not entirely her own. _But I can't just lay here,_ she thought miserably. _That's just as bad. I have to do something . . ._

It occurred to her then to wonder why he hadn't apparently moved since hitting the floor. _Did he knock himself out on something?_ she hoped. With a deep breath, she forced herself to a false calmness, holding herself steady by years of rigid training. There, punctuating the quiet of the cellar, she heard him – gasping as if in pain. And then she knew: It was full moon. The cramps had come upon him.

Terror for Wolf welled up inside her, but she forced it down, knowing she had to find a way out now, while he was occupied. How long the cramps would last, she had no idea – she really hadn't paid that much attention back in Little Lamb Village -_ quit feeling guilty! It's not helping the situation!_ Deliberately, she forced herself to stand, and though her legs were still shaking, she felt somewhat better. Tentatively she slid her feet sideways just a little, then a little more, making her way away from where she knew her brother-in-law had landed. Her hands touched the stone of the wall, and she followed it, faster now, past an inside corner, several feet more until her hands touched the wood of a door. She fumbled for the knob, finding a latch instead, and tore her fingernails twisting it in her panic. At last it gave way and the door swung outwards into the ghostly greys of a cellar with high, small windows. She slammed the door shut behind her.

It took her some time to find the stairs. The cellar of the place was huge, but cut up into what seemed to be a meaningless series of rooms, and she wasted precious time checking each in the dim light. Now, as she reached for the handle of the door to the main floor, she found herself terrified that it would be locked and she'd be trapped with Rafe when he'd changed shape. It had been terrifying to be overpowered by him in his human body. Once he had transformed . . . _Stop it!_

She yanked down hard on the handle. It wasn't locked, but in the darkness there was no mistaking the red LED on the wall to her right that suddenly flashed on and off. She'd tripped some sort of alarm. Instinctively, she flinched, but then told herself she was being foolish. She wanted to be found, didn't she? This way it was certain, even if . . . _Don't think about it, just get moving . . ._

She walked a short distance down the corridor, past partition walls that didn't quite reach the high coffered ceiling, their shadowy depths brimming with museum pieces and display cases. _I'm inside Philippsruhe, _she realized, although she and Wolf hadn't yet toured the old palace - its exhibits weren't specific enough for what they'd been searching. Now, however, she wished fervently that they had; it would have made it so much easier if she'd known where she was going.

She passed through a series of rooms, their crystal chandeliers glimmering in the moonlight which reached them through the high windows. But when she reached a turn in their orientation and at last reached a dead end, she realized she'd have to go back the way she'd come - and that she'd taken up too much time already. She turned around and set off in a run, but when she reached the cellar door once again, she held her breath, almost expecting to see the handle turn as she watched. Still, she forced herself past it, coming out into a room where a grand staircase ascended up and to the right, its dark banister ornamented with some gleaming metal. And there, on the far wall, through another doorway to her right, lay the main entrance at last. Only this door, the third she'd tried, was locked.

Panic and frustration crashed over her; she wanted to scream "NO!" and in her disbelief, shook the door on its hinges, before turning around and leaning heavily against it. _This can't be happening, it can't! I can't be trapped here, not now, not after all that!_ Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away. The chandelier overhead seemed to wink at her. She stared at it curiously. It winked again, as if . . . as if a slight breeze were blowing on it . . .

He was standing in the shadows back by the stairway, his eyes reflecting the light like an animal's, his breathing sharp and shallow. Her heart quailed; she felt the blood drain away from her face. Slowly, he took a step towards her.

Wildly, she looked around, her eyes straining to see in the darkness, resolving only grey misty shapes broken by intermittent bright silver pools of reflected moonlight. Her pulse raced, beating a panicked tempo at her throat. He advanced slowly, in no apparent hurry. _And why should he be?_ she wailed inwardly. _I'm trapped; there's no way I could outrun him!_ For a brief moment she considered it anyway. To her right she could see the dark, looming entrance to a different room. But the fear of not knowing how long it would be until he struck – from behind – stayed her. Still, she edged sideways, almost unconsciously, towards the opening; there was nowhere else she could go and not be cornered against a wall. His eyes followed her, glinting and inhuman. An inane little corner of her brain dispassionately compared him to his brother - her husband. They were so alike, yet not. She had never - at any moment in their life together - thought of Wolf as an animal. Nor did she really think of him as a fantastical creature that shouldn't logically exist; it still gave her a bit of a thrilling shock to see him undressed; to see or feel the obviously alive tail. But the disbelief was something she could put aside - even when she saw him as a werewolf - because she knew him so well, she thought; knew his dreams and fears and hopes. Yet the impression she had of his brother, here and now, was that of the classic, fabled beast - a monster who meant her nothing but evil.

She stumbled against something soft that nonetheless clattered, and though she caught herself almost immediately, he rushed forward, covering half the distance to her in less than a breath, and it took all of her willpower to keep from collapsing entirely and cowering on the floor. Her hand found the obstacle - a thick velvet rope which cordoned off some unknown part of the museum from visitors - and clenched on to it. The brass stand from which it hung was not that far. Once again, she edged sideways toward her goal.

Rafe saw what she was doing. The eyes narrowed and he sprang. In a fluid motion, Virginia scooped up the barricade post and swung it at him. But, unlike that long-ago time when she'd knocked Wolf out the window of her grandmother's apartment, she missed. Her assailant had seen it coming and violently tore the heavy brass club from her grasp. It sailed sideways across the room and with a crunch, bounced off a far wall. Before it ceased clattering, he had her by both arms, forcing them up and behind her and she screamed, her voice choking off to nothing as she felt his hot breath on her face, unable, finally, to utter a sound.

"Please," she mouthed the words, barely whispering, pleading, "Please don't hurt me . . . please . . ."

It was then she understood that he truly intended to kill her.

Deep inside, the old coldness welled up – the impenetrable ice that had served her so well for so long. Dying was so much easier if she felt nothing, had never felt anything. Her eyes closed.

His claws bit into the flesh of her arms, tearing the sleeves of her coat as she felt him being jerked away, snarling. Freed, her eyes snapped open, searching the darkness. A shadowy figure too big for a single man writhed at her feet amidst a cacophony of growls and snarls. She knew she should run, that this was her chance, but something - she didn't quite know what - rooted her, and she was unable to take even a single step away.

He cried out, an injured yelp, broken off. The voice . . . wasn't Rafe's. Shaking, she watched in horror as a part of the shadow disentangled itself from the rest and stood, its glowing eyes regarding her with angry menace. Inside her, a small flame leapt to life against the coldness she'd thrown up, kindled by the unmoving thing still huddled on the floor. _Wolf . . . _she thought. _Wolf._ He'd come to rescue her one last time.

She didn't know where the scream came from, only that she heard it – a woman's scream of outraged desperation just before she took up yet another of the brass rope-stands and charged into the thing that had been her brother-in-law. He took a step back, surprised, and tripped over the too-still form of his brother. Momentum carried Virginia forward onto him. As she let go the metal club to catch herself before she hit the floor, it struck him a glancing blow on the chin, sending him back down just as he rose. She hit the floor beside her husband, one hand pressing into his back before she slid it quickly up to his face.

"Wolf?"

He didn't answer. Her hand came away wet and sticky from something on his neck.

"_Wolf!!"_ she screamed.

In a panic, she shook him, telling herself stupidly that she really ought to check for a pulse, then tried to forget she'd suggested it - she really didn't want to know.

"Wolf, please! Please wake up!"

Panic was creeping into her voice. He had to wake up. He had to. She couldn't live now without him; couldn't go back to the way she'd been. _Please . . ._

Rafe's clothes rustled as he pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees. He crawled the few feet over to his brother . . .

With a growl that sounded more like a roar, Wolf reared up, slamming Rafe's head down against the polished parquet of the floor, once, then again, before lunging at his throat. Abruptly, the lights flared on.

"_Gott im Himmel!!" _

Virginia's head snapped in the direction of the voice. Her eyes blinking against the suddenly too-bright room, she saw two policemen standing just inside the previously locked door. Both held guns, drawn, aimed at the scene they obviously couldn't believe was taking place before them.

"_NO!!!!"_ she shrieked, and threw herself in front of her husband.


	12. XI  War

XI - War

Virginia looked down at her husband's sleeping face, still sallow against the white of the pillow and the thick bandage that covered the right side of his neck. He'd been lying in their bed in Wendell's castle ever since they'd stumbled back through the mirror with his brother in tow and Wolf had collapsed in the dungeons as Rafe was safely locked away. That had been nearly three days ago.

She glanced at her watch. _Dr. Oberon should be here by now,_ she thought. Not to see her, however. No, after careful consideration - well, okay, frantic consideration - of the attitude of Nine Kingdoms doctors towards half-wolfs, Oberon, the only "Tenth Kingdom" doctor who knew of the mirror's existence, had been the only one she'd trust with Wolf's life. Even then, she'd had to point out to him that his limited experience in general medicine (he's said just an internship?) was better than any treatment Wolf was likely to get otherwise. And still, she'd gotten the strange impression that he'd agreed to do as she asked for some other reason wholly his own.

She fidgeted, and felt the baby flutter inside her. _That's getting a lot more noticeable, _she thought, just before a surge of emotion brought tears to her eyes; she wished he could wake up and experience it with her. The reassurance that Oberon had given - that Wolf would "probably" be all right, worried her - suppose the vital signs of half-wolfs were nothing whatsoever like the vital signs of humans? He might be dying and . . .

_Oh, stop it, Virginia!_ she told herself severely, wiping her tears away and trying to take deep breaths, _You're just making it worse._ Still, she wished the doctor would hurry up.

Her mind went back over how they'd come to be at Wendell's in the first place.

The policemen who'd come in response to the alarm she'd set off had been beside themselves to find two werewolves in the museum. She remembered thinking at the time that even if she hadn't somehow sensed Wolf changing back to himself behind her, she'd have known it by the looks on the cops' faces. The one had been so overcome he'd nearly dropped his revolver, and it had taken some moments for the other to find his voice. He, however, had kept his gun trained on Wolf the entire time. Even then, from the questions he'd asked her – he'd seemed to know she'd been abducted and to have somehow met Wolf before – she wondered if their previous acquaintance was the only thing that stayed his hand. Not that he'd gotten all chummy with him.

In fact, after what seemed like an eternity spent in the patrol car, the two policemen came to the conclusion that the safest way to deal with the entire incident was to escort them all out of the country. Immediately. Luckily for Gerard, it hadn't taken a lot of convincing for Virginia to be allowed to help collect their luggage from the hotel, after all, Wolf and Rafe were the obvious threats. But her flesh still crawled at the memory of the horrifyingly pitying looks they'd given her obviously pregnant body.

She'd managed to clean Wolf up fairly well using some towels the hotel had given her - with the policemen's blessing - and the first aid kit in the patrol car. Wolf, however, had taken care of his brother's disheveled appearance himself, for which she was glad. She didn't think she'd ever be able to stand being near him again. Fortunately - and curiously, she thought - he'd been completely passive since regaining consciousness in the museum. Wolf gave him orders - _Sit here, move this, hold that_ - and he'd obeyed with wordless compliance.

Their flight home from Duesseldorf had been uneventful, and they'd easily caught a cab back to Central Park. Although he'd been much more subdued than usual, she'd managed to convince herself that it was due to her ordeal at the hands of his brother, and that his own wound had looked much worse than it actually was, so normal did he seem otherwise. Then, this. Dr. Oberon had told them he was suffering from shock, as the bite Rafe had given him was quite deep. She squeezed Wolf's hand.

Outside in the corridor she heard voices, then footsteps. The door opened and the doctor entered carrying his little black bag, ushered in by one of the ubiquitous servants. It amused her - or would have if she hadn't been so worried about Wolf - that he actually owned the classic doctor's kit.

Virginia stood up.

"He hasn't woken up yet," she told him.

Oberon quickly examined Wolf.

"He's just sleeping," he informed her. "Nothing to worry about."

"But for three days?"

"He needs the rest, Virginia," he said gently. "He'll wake up when he's ready. I do have something that may help now, though."

To her surprise, he removed a vial from his bag and measured some fluid from it into a syringe.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "I thought you said you couldn't give him anything . . ."

He was silent as he gave Wolf the injection, then turned to her and said, "I didn't want to before as I didn't know how it might affect him. But . . ." He paused a moment and led her to a chair, saying, "Why don't we go over here and talk?" He sat down facing her. "How have you been feeling, Virginia?"

"Me?" she asked as he sat down across from her. "I'm fine. I really wasn't hurt at all. Wolf . . ."

"I know you weren't injured in Germany," he told her. "I meant as far as the baby goes. I am an obstetrician, remember?"

"Oh," she said, nonplussed. "Well, fine, I guess. I mean there's nothing wrong. Why? What does this have to do with Wolf?"

He looked momentarily at the floor.

"Well," he said, "I ran some tests on your husband and the results were . . . quite astonishing."

She felt her heart skip; her worst fears were coming true. THIS had been his ulterior motive, she realized. Why hadn't she seen it coming? She should have known better than to trust someone. Who knew what he had given Wolf just now?

"What kind of tests?" she said icily.

"Blood tests, a chromosome count, a DNA analysis," he informed her casually, ignoring her tone as he rummaged through some papers. "Here." He shoved one of the sheets into her hand.

She glanced perfunctorily at it, then glared back at him.

"You know, we're not guinea pigs for you to experiment on," she spat.

"What?" He looked up. "You think . . . Oh, no, that's not it at all."

"What is it then?"

He rattled the paper she was still holding.

"This," he said emphatically. "Your husband is as human as we are."

* * *

Tom watched Virginia's expression go from confusion to surprise to disbelief in quick succession - as he had expected it would. His own reaction had been virtually the same, and because of this he was prepared for what he knew she would say.

"They must have mixed the samples up at the lab."

"No," he assured her smoothly. "I thought the same thing - even though the blood testing and genetic screening are done in different locations - so I sent a second sample just to be sure. And the results are the same." He pointed to the chromosome pairs shown in regular rows on the paper she held in her hand. "He has forty-six chromosomes, like anyone else, complete with an X and Y, like any male." He pulled the second sheet from her numb hands and laid it on top. "And his blood sample shows he has O positive blood, which is the most common type."

She looked up.

"But how is that possible?" she asked, still suspicious of him, but, he thought, beginning to waver. "You know he . . . he can change . . ."

"He's a werewolf, basically," he finished for her.

"Yes, but . . ." She sighed and looked away a moment before continuing, "I know that in the movies, people became werewolves because they were bitten by one or they were cursed or something, but here it isn't like that. It's genetically inherited."

"Well," he offered, "the chromosome count doesn't show what's in the individual genes."

"He has a tail." She said it as if it were her trump card and she'd just won the hand.

Tom blinked. "Okay," he said. He hadn't really known that, but somehow it was easier to accept than a person being able to change shape - which he'd never have believed if he hadn't seen it to begin with.

She looked at him, her lips tight, her eyes still flinty.

"What exactly were you planning to do if these 'tests' had showed something else?" she demanded.

"Claim that they must have been contaminated."

"Oh, really?" He voice dripped sarcasm.

"Yes, really," he insisted. In a way he understood her fear, but because he also knew his own profession well, he knew it was unfounded. "If I had _tried_ to do as you're implying I might have, I'd hardly have been believed anyway. The scientific community is far too conservative when it comes to revolutionary discoveries. I'd have been flooded with rebuttals claiming my testing procedures weren't reliable. Not only that, but any reputation I've already gotten built up would have been destroyed. So I'd be far worse off if that was my reason for these tests."

For a split second, she watched him warily. Then, quietly, she asked, "So what was your reason?"

He hesitated for what he knew was a fraction too long before replying, "Besides needing information to help me treat your husband, I needed information on the baby's genetic make-up. So that I'd be well prepared for anything that might happen. I wouldn't have been able to give him that electrolyte shot without knowing it wouldn't likely harm him. He _has_ been asleep for a long time. I'd start an IV if I wasn't worried that it would come loose if he inadvertently shape-changed. It's possible he could become dehydrated."

As if in answer to this suggestion, a hoarse whisper from across the room said, "I _could_ use a drink . . ."

"Oh, Wolf!" exclaimed Virginia, running to him. "You're awake!" She nearly threw her arms around him, but stopped herself at the last minute, obviously afraid she'd hurt something. Wolf reached up to her, resting one hand on the small of her back while the other felt her bulging stomach. He smiled and closed his eyes again.

Tom watched them with a pain in his heart, in that moment knowing Wolf's thoughts; knowing the other man was at peace no matter how physically battered he was - he'd saved his family. _I didn't,_ he thought. _I wasn't there . . ._

He looked abruptly away. What he'd told Virginia about his reasons for taking the samples from Wolf was only partly true. The part he hadn't told her - hadn't even wanted to tell himself until it was thrust so graphically in his face - was that he'd taken them to prove to himself that a land with different rules really did exist; that if he could find even one thing different here that could be unequivocally measured _as_ different, then he could accept the possibility that his Julie might be restored to life; that he could see her and touch her once again; be allowed to not make the same mistake twice. Yet his tests proved Wolf nothing but human - at best, a member of a race of men who didn't exist on the New York side of the mirror, but who were men, nonetheless. And he thought bitterly that if he were to somehow be allowed to test the fairy girl he'd seen that she'd be human too.

He shouldn't feel this way, he knew, and he'd tried not to; tried to convince himself that he was entirely ambivalent about the results, concerned only because if the tests were normal, then he'd have no real explanation for why Virginia was so much bigger than twenty weeks pregnant (he no longer doubted she'd gotten the wrong date after hearing the circumstances of their meeting), nor did he still believe she might be trying to deceive her husband. But he knew realistically that her size could be accounted for by mundane means: She might be carrying twins, for instance, or an extremely large baby, or . . . no, he didn't want to think of that, but he had to consider it . . . something might be wrong. There was, however, no way he could check - no matter what the results, an ultrasound was out of the question after seeing Wolf's reaction to it. Tom fumed at his own dependency on technology. _And you're still not facing the truth,_ he told himself bitterly. _You were disappointed more because you wanted to believe Julie could come back than because of any concern about your patient._

He glanced back over at Wolf and Virginia feeling as if his guilt were written on his face. _Well, he's awake. Time to get up yourself and go examine him._ Realizing belatedly that tears had tracked their way down his cheeks while he ruminated, he dashed them away on his sleeve, then rose. Hopefully they wouldn't see his hands shaking, he thought. But he was saved from having to interrupt them just then by the arrival of King Wendell.

"Oh," said the king as he stepped into the room and saw Virginia and Wolf embracing. His head turned at once to Tom, and he continued smoothly, "I saw you come in and I wondered if maybe Wolf had awakened yet . . ."

"Only just now," Tom managed to say. Odd, he thought, how his voice sounded completely normal - he didn't feel that way at all. "I don't advise he be subjected to any kind of question and answer session." Tom knew the young king had been itching to hear Wolf's report on what he'd discovered in Germany; Virginia had helped with the research, but she'd had little real clue about what Wolf might be using to tie European history to the Nine Kingdoms.

Wendell glanced down at the floor, then back up and at a letter the doctor now noticed he was carrying - a sheet of parchment clutched against a legal sized envelope of similar paper, its blue wax seal broken.

"I wasn't intending to," he said, then amended, "Well, not entirely. You see, something has just come up that I'm certain is a result of exactly what we're trying to fight against . . ."

"What is it, Wendy?" asked Wolf's ruined voice. His eyes remained shut.

"Nothing that can't wait," interjected the doctor.

Wolf waved his comment aside with a minute wave of his fingers. "S'okay. I can listen all right." He then turned to Virginia and asked for a glass of water as Wendell brought the letter up, preparing to read it.

"I received this a little while ago from King Gregor of the Eighth Kingdom. I'll read what it says:

_Your Majesty,_

_I am writing to implore you to help me with my son. I fear he has gone quite mad with rage and is launching a campaign to rid the kingdoms of half-wolfs. His mother is beside herself with worry and I must say that I share her feelings as well. A fortnight ago, he was expected in Queen Claret's court for their official announcement of betrothal, but did not show for the ceremony. When asked about his whereabouts, his first lieutenant informed me that he was making his way to the Sixth Kingdom. I dispatched a letter, imploring him to return and to cease this nonsense. He is insisting that they are going to bring the death of us all. I have not noted any significant wolf activity for some time and cannot understand why Gunther is acting so. He sent back no word, and I feel that if no action is taken, I will lose my son forever._

_Please, Wendell, he considers you a friend and he looks up to you so. I beg of you to help._

_Your humble servant_  
_Gregor"_

* * *

Wolf felt much better the next day – so much so that, as soon as Virginia had gone downstairs to do something or other, he decided to get up and get dressed so he could go down himself and surprise her, as well as finish that other task he'd started. Somehow he knew that if he'd tried to get up while she was still there, she'd fuss over him - _like a little dwarf housewife, _he thought with a smile.

He made it to the wardrobe, but while he stood there trying to decide which outfit would make him look most dashing for her, a wave of dizziness swept over him. It wasn't anything he couldn't control by simply grabbing onto the wardrobe door to steady himself and waiting until it passed - which it did - but unfortunately his beloved chose that exact moment to re-enter the room.

"Wolf!" she cried. "What are you doing out of bed? Are you crazy?"

She ran over to him.

"I'm fine, Virginia," he told her.

"Sure you are, that's why you just had to grab hold of that door to keep standing up," she retorted, leaving him in no further doubt that she'd seen him do it. "Overdoing it is what got you in trouble in the first place. Now get back in bed."

"But Virginia," he whined. "I'm tired of lying in bed. It's boring."

Oddly, instead of arguing further, she glanced around behind herself, drawing Wolf's gaze along with her own. When he saw who she was looking at, he realized he'd actually scented his aunt as soon as the door had been opened, but simply hadn't registered that she was there. Maybe his brain was still a little fuzzy, he acknowledged. But still . . .

Millie smiled at him, but the expression in her eyes remained worried.

"Simon," she said matter-of-factly, "Would you please at least sit down on the bed so I can take a look at you?"

He recognized the tactic from his childhood: whenever they were sick, she'd keep them under control by getting them to agree to her conditions a little bit at a time, so he knew she wouldn't be satisfied with just an examination. But surely, he thought, she'd understand why it was so critical that he not stay in bed any longer than absolutely necessary this time - though not before she examined him, he knew. So he sat back down in bed with a sigh.

Millie pulled the bandage back from his neck. He saw her blink a couple of times and bite her lip. She knew, then, he thought. Her next words confirmed it.

"He bit you," she said simply. "To kill." He saw the tears start to form in her eyes.

"I'm not dead," he pointed out gently, though he knew it was through no action of his brother's.

"Only because you must have moved at the last minute," she said. "How are you doing with the pain?"

"Not too bad," he replied. "The doctor from Virginia's world gave me something - what was it, Virginia?"

"A muscle relaxer."

"A muscle relaxer. But it was for my stiff neck. It just hurt from trying to hold my head still. This isn't near as bad as it was - it throbs, but it doesn't really hurt unless I twist it . . ."

His aunt nodded, then said, "Well, I can't give you anything else until I find out exactly what it was." She replaced the bandage, but held him back when he tried to sit up.

"Virginia said you slept for three days without waking."

"I'm awake now."

She regarded him dubiously.

"Simon. She is right. You exhausted yourself before and went into shock. You can't just get up immediately and go on as if nothing has happened. Your body will just react by going into shock again. If you want to get back to normal as soon as possible, then you'll stay here and rest until you're recovered completely."

"But Auntie," he whined, "You know why I did it – why I had to stay awake – so you also know that's exactly why I've got to go face Rafe again now! It might already be too late."

His aunt looked away pensively, but Virginia's incredulous voice broke in: "Face Rafe again? For what? He's in the dungeon, can't he just stay there?"

Wolf reached for his wife's hand and pulled her to him gently.

"Virginia, I challenged him and won," he explained. "I've never been able to do it before. He obeyed me on the way back because I was on constant guard against him, but it's likely he won't accept my authority now without another challenge. The longer I wait, the more likely that is."

"Challenged him?" she asked, confused. "What are you talking about? If anything, he challenged you, dragging me off like that. It's not like he didn't know we were married."

He started to explain that it wasn't that simple, but his aunt cut in.

"They've always challenged each other in one way or another, ever since they were little; it's just part of them being so close in age."

"They didn't try to kill each other!" Virginia pointed out.

"No . . ." his aunt admitted, looking away. She was silent a moment before looking up at him. "Wait until tomorrow, then we'll both go face him," she said. "But afterwards, you'll come right back up here."

"You won't . . ." he began.

"I won't look in on him until then," she assured him. "His wounds have been treated. I can wait another day too."

He thought there was something else she wasn't saying, but knew there was no way to make her say what she wanted kept to herself.

"Meanwhile," she added, "I think Virginia's arranged something to keep you from getting too bored."

He looked over at his succulent sweetheart expectantly.

"Wendell's agreed to hold his conference about Prince Gunther's sudden wolf-hunting in your room," she told him.

"Oh," he said, trying not to sound too disappointed. For a moment he thought she'd had something more physical - and more private - in mind, but he supposed she'd think that was overdoing it too, if she didn't even want him to walk around. "You know, Virginia, he doesn't have to. I know I don't have anything to do with . . ."

"Wolf! He _wants_ to! He thinks - we think - it must have something to do with the curse - he asked Gwendolyn about Rafe." She shook her head. "Just wait. You'll see."

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long before Wendell, Gwen and Rupert arrived in his chamber. They took a moment to arrange themselves - Rupert and Gwen sitting as far apart as possible - _what was going on with that anyway?_ he wondered anew. He'd almost forgotten Rupert's strange reaction when Gwen had first arrived. But he put aside his questions as Wendell began.

"First of all, I think everyone should know that Gwen has been to see Rafe and positively identified him as the 'bard' that visited her family's estate and gained so much influence over her brother Gunther," the king announced. "Of course we have no way of knowing why Rafe would choose to promote the eradication of all wolfs, as he is one himself, but it appears that this was exactly what he did, and with lasting consequences." Wendell glanced around at each of them in turn. Oddly, Wolf noted that his aunt didn't meet the king's gaze, instead choosing to stare fixedly at the floor. His own brow furrowed as he wondered again just exactly what she wasn't saying, but he couldn't imagine what she might know that would explain Rafe's behavior.

"What we have to figure out now is why Gunther would choose the Sixth Kingdom as a target," Wendell continued. "Wolf, did you find anything out in the records of Virginia's world which would give us a clue?"

"About the Sixth Kingdom?" he asked, surprised. "No. I mean, I know there's a curse on it an all, but everyone here knows that. I really wasn't looking for information on the Sixth Kingdom while we were in Germany. And I don't think the curse is even that old; wasn't it cast well after the Golden Age - well _after_ Grimm's visit?"

"Yes," Wendell acknowledged. "So it really wouldn't be part of the same curse."

"What is the curse on the Sixth Kingdom?" asked Virginia.

"No one's really sure," Wendell told her, then amended, "Well, I suppose the wizards know exactly what it is, but so far as everyone else knows, it's just surrounded by a wall of thorns. People can apparently get in if they wish, but no one's ever returned."

"Well, how do you know how long ago it was cursed if you don't know what the curse is?" she asked reasonably.

"Because there's a whole history of the Sixth Kingdom up until a certain point. They had ambassadors, a thriving trade, the best navy in the kingdoms - and then it all just stopped. No one knew why and all attempts to find out resulted in people going missing." He looked around at the gathered group. "Obviously some kind of curse was involved." They all nodded assent.

Wolf squeezed his wife's hand. He knew there was no such thing as a curse in her world and she still had trouble accepting that such things were not only real, but routine, in his.

Wendell regarded him.

"Do you think there's any chance of interviewing Rafe to see if he'll tell us the significance of the Sixth Kingdom in all this?" he asked.

"I'm going to see him tomorrow."

The king looked displeased; obviously he wanted the information as soon as possible - as did Wolf - but the stern looks Wendell got from both Virginia and Wolf's aunt kept the king silent about the delay.

"Well then," he said, changing the subject, "How did your research trip go? Were you able to discover the information you were looking for?"

Wolf looked down.

"Unfortunately not," he admitted. "And we probably won't be allowed back in the country, either. I did find some interesting notes on the royal family of a place called Austria, but nothing to lead me to the conclusion that they're the ones mentioned in the prophecy."

"What exactly were you looking for?" asked Gwen, confused.

Wolf told her about how they'd interpreted the prophecy to mean that a royal family from both sides of the mirror had to intermarry and produce a child to break the curse. "Unfortunately, it has to be a specific family from Virginia's dimension, while here a descendent of the original Five will apparently do. Wendell offered himself, as he's the only single one of the right age."

Her eyes grew wide, then blazed with indignation as she turned regally to the king.

"You. Told. Me. That you could never marry because of your . . . your being . . . different!" she spat through clenched teeth. "That you'd never be able to . . . to _produce_ an heir!"

Rupert stood up.

"He didn't _have_ to produce an heir!" he shouted back at her across the top of Wendell's head. "You should be glad he and his advisors were kind enough to inform you of it so you didn't become trapped into a marriage with him!"

"Kind enough?" she retorted, her voice raising an octave. "_Kind_ enough? To do what? Make me the laughingstock of my kingdom – for getting thrown over by a _man?_"

"I suppose you'd rather be married to him knowing he'd never want to touch you?"

"Sounds like he intended to touch _her!_" she shouted back as Wolf and Virginia stared open-mouthed at the fray. Wendell stared at the ceiling, trying now and then to raise his hands to put an end to it, but they steadfastly refused to see him. At long last, a servant came to the door with a message, and the king abruptly rose to meet him.

Although Gwen and Rupert continued to argue, Wolf's attention had turned to the king. He watched him break the seal on the letter and read it, the blood visibly draining from his face.

"What is it?" Wolf heard Virginia ask, followed by "WILL you two please SHUT UP!"

They stared at her, their faces masks of outrage, not only for each other, but obviously for what they considered Virginia's rude interruption of the 'conversation'. But when they saw Wendell, they forgot their argument, at least for the moment.

He sat down heavily in the chair he'd just vacated, staring in horror at the message in his hand. Licking his lips, he began to read, but his voice failed and he had to start a second time. Finally he said, "The Fifth Kingdom has just declared war on us."

"Why?" everyone said, nearly in unison.

Rupert sputtered, "Are you certain you've read it correctly?"

Wordlessly Wendell handed him the letter.

"_His Majesty King Wendell,"_ read Rupert,

"_In accordance with the laws of these Nine Kingdoms, I hereby declare war upon your land. Your recent acquittal of all half-wolves is the most reprehensible action ever taken by a monarch in 150 years. You come from such a noble line, Wendell, and you could have been as great as your grandmother, but this is beyond sane. It is regrettable that such actions are being taken, but I feel that it is in the best interest of all the kingdoms that you be dethroned. _

_King Cole IV"_

His voice trailed off, as if there must have been some mistake.

"But Old King Cole was at the awards ceremony you gave in our honor!" exclaimed Virginia. "He didn't seem to have any objection to the wolf pardon then!"

"Oh, huff puff," growled Wolf. "It's typical. Just let them think about it for awhile and they'll dream up all kinds of reasons why it's a bad idea." He glanced at Wendell meaningfully; he still hadn't forgotten how the king had almost repealed the pardon in the first month of its existence.

"No," Wendell said quietly. "I agree with Virginia. This is . . . sudden. We've had no indication that Cole was even mildly upset and now he's declaring war. There's something wrong here."

"Mellifict," said Gwen.

"What?"

"Your prisoner that escaped," she explained. "He wasn't in the swamp; we never found a trace of him. If he made it to the Fifth Kingdom, it's logical to assume that he influenced Cole in the same way Wolf's brother influenced mine."

Wendell looked dubious.

"I wouldn't necessarily jump to that conclusion," he said. "To the best of our knowledge, Rafe was influenced by the curse. How could that be true of the doctor when he was safely in a cell here at the time the curse was invoked a kingdom away?"

"Rafe was the one who helped him escape," Virginia pointed out.

"But that was to help the Swamp Witch with her plans," Wendell insisted.

"I don't know, Wendy," put in Wolf, finally. "We just assumed it was. Rafe apparently stayed here to follow us through the mirror."

"Yes, he had to have been in New York for awhile before we met him in Germany," Virginia added. "He'd gotten a passport somehow."

"That curse is unbelievably powerful. I wouldn't be so quick to assume it couldn't influence someone from that far away – even if you ignore the fact that my brother may have swayed the doctor himself. I'm beginning to suspect it even tried to use the Swamp Witch for its purposes."

"Well, if it's some all-powerful thing such as you describe," asked Rupert, "How in the world are we going to fight it?"

"Fulfill the prophecy," answered Wendell quietly.

Gwen sighed disgustedly and looked out the window. Rupert started to say something but Millie cut him off.

"What exactly does the prophecy say?" she asked. "I don't remember there being enough of it to decipher."

"Oh, I've got a copy of the whole thing," Virginia told her. "Let me get it out."

She pulled open the top drawer of her writing desk and handed the older woman a pristine sheet of the verse. His aunt read it over and her brow furrowed.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Well, technically it isn't all there," Virginia admitted. "Samantha said part of it had to be missing - the interpretation she gave was based on what was available."

"Oh!" exclaimed Gwen indignantly. "So it's not even certain that Wendell's marrying that . . . person . . . would even do any good!"

Rupert retorted that he agreed but he didn't see what business it was of Gwen's.

"Who is Samantha?" asked Millie over the fray.

Virginia told her, concluding with, " . . . and I guess she's still in a coma. We haven't heard anything from Dad, and I'm sure he would have gotten word back if she was all right."

Wolf reached for his wife and drew her to him, hugging her as best he could without pulling her down on top of him. He knew she'd been worried about Tony's continued silence. To his great delight, he felt the baby thump against his cheek. He looked up as Virginia's hand went to the spot, and their eyes met. For just a moment, the argument, worry and imminent war faded into the background and a feeling of great calm and peace came over him. Then gradually, as the activity in the room flowed slowly back to his awareness, he heard his aunt say as if from a long way off, "But none of this explains why the curse is so concerned with the persecution of wolfs."

He realized then that she was right; up until now he'd taken it for granted simply because he was so accustomed to being hated for what he was, but there was nothing whatsoever in the prophecy to account for his brother's inexplicable behavior. Why . . . _how_ . . . could he have betrayed his own people, he wondered?

"It's probably just using what's available to sow discord," someone suggested.

"More speculation," he heard Gwen insist. "None of this is anything more than speculation. When it comes down to it, we don't really know anything."

"No," he said suddenly. "But I know someone who does."

"No," said Virginia firmly. "Absolutely not. You are waiting until tomorrow like you told your aunt you would." He saw her look at his aunt for confirmation, but Millie seemed to be preoccupied with studying the floor.

"That was before we knew there was going to be a war," he argued.

"I don't care," his wife insisted.

"Virginia . . ."

"NO!" she shouted. He saw tears in her eyes as she continued, "I almost lost you - I'm not going to risk it again, just for the sake of_maybe_ getting a scrap of information! It's not our war anyway; we can just go back to New York!"

For a moment no one spoke; the only sound was Virginia's sobbing intake of breath.

"It is my war," he told her quietly, and she looked at him reproachfully as if no one else were present, tears spilling. "It's a war against wolfs," he finished. Her face turned away as if he had slapped her.

He felt miserable. On the one hand, he understood perfectly how Virginia felt: it had taken her so long to trust her heart to him that once she had, she intended to protect that investment in every way possible. Nor would he have been happy had their positions been reversed, though he would have agonized only to himself about it. But he had a duty now he couldn't ignore - a duty not only to his family, as Rafe seemed inextricably bound up in the wrong side of a wolf-hating war, but to the country and sovereign from whom he had obtained the Pardon of All Wolfs. With the vow he'd made to himself that his child would not grow up in a world who hated her kind added to that, he really had no choice in the matter at all.

His aunt, fortunately, had agreed, although on the condition that he be carried to the dungeon and back. He had tried to argue, but her logic had been impeccable: He needed to appear as strong as possible in front of Rafe, and if he tired himself out on the way to his brother's cell, it wouldn't be possible. She'd said nothing about the other possibility – that Rafe might challenge him again, and he'd need his strength for that - but privately he hoped it wouldn't be necessary. He knew he'd have very little hope of winning.

The servants set the chair they'd been carrying him in down in front of the dungeon entrance that opened onto the service corridor near the palace laundry. Virginia had remained behind in their rooms, doubly upset: Not only was he going through with facing Rafe against her wishes, both he and his aunt had told her it was best if she didn't accompany him to the confrontation. She'd set her jaw and looked away out the window in stony silence. Wolf sighed. He could live with her anger; she'd get over it - and she'd probably see that what he was doing was necessary. If he came back, that is; if Rafe didn't kill him this time.

He stood up. It took him only a moment to be sure of his equilibrium, then he squared his shoulders and opened the dungeon door. The steps were a bit harder to negotiate, especially as his neck didn't want him to look down. He leaned on his aunt for balance – it seemed odd to be relying physically on her; she'd always seemed so fragile to him. But as they cleared the last of the stairs and he started down the dim corridor to his brother's cell and Rafe's familiar scent wafted up to him, he forgot about that minor incongruity.

Rafe was sitting in the far corner on the floor of the cell – the same cell in which Wolf had confined himself on that long-ago full moon - his legs hugged to his body, seemingly oblivious to the troupe of people that had clomped and clanged their way down the corridor. His brown hair was wild and unkempt; he looked as though he hadn't shaved for several days - and probably hadn't.

Wolf stepped up to the bars. "Rafe," he said. There was no reaction. Louder, he repeated, "Rafe!" Still nothing. Wolf glanced over at Millie who, oddly, looked away. He licked his lips. Wolf had no real idea of what to say to evoke a response; issuing commands had never been within his experience. His eyes flicked momentarily to Wendell, but he knew instinctively that it would be a sign of weakness to ask for help. He took a deep breath.

"Why did you challenge me?"

Strangely, it wasn't the question he'd intended to ask – there was nothing in it about the impending war or what Rafe's motives had been during his stay in the Eighth Kingdom, or why he had released Mellifict.

Rafe, however, remained silent.

That was a bad sign, Wolf knew. If Rafe still accepted his dominance, he would have answered that question, at least. He thought it was possible that the bars between them might be affecting how his brother viewed him; that if he were to step inside the cell, Rafe might respond. But he knew it was equally likely - if not more so, considering what he knew his brother was like even under normal circumstances - that he'd have to fight him again to get the information he needed. And, as he doubted he could win, he resolved to enter the cell only as a last resort.

"I understand," he began again, acutely aware of his companions and how what he was about to say would sound to them, "I know Virginia isn't a half-wolf. I can understand if that's the reason – you didn't know her."

Still Rafe did not respond.

Wolf imagined the eyes of Wendell and his guards boring into his back; their outrage at his casual dismissal of everyone not of his own race. At the same time, he knew his own scent had changed to reflect his shame, and that Rafe would detect it and interpret it as fear. He straightened his back and plunged on, trying not to think too hard about his own words, "But you should have been able to tell that she's carrying my cub. So I'm asking again. Why? Why threaten a child's life?"

At Wolf's last words a shiver seemed to pass through his brother's body. His eyes focused on a point in the air in front of him and he exhaled in contempt.

"Why not?" he growled quietly, his voice cracking.

Wolf blinked. He'd been expecting a cagey reply, or at least a sarcastic one. Rafe's cold, careless answer frightened him nearly as much as fighting him had. He tried to think of what to say next, but Rafe, now started, continued, _"Why not?"_

He picked himself slowly up off the floor, fastening his eyes on Wolf's only after he was fully standing. "It'll just die anyway," he declared, his voice shaking as it rose in pitch, "Best to end it now, before you meet it – before it's someone you know; someone you have dreams for. Before you hear it laugh." He looked abruptly down before continuing in a whimper, "Before it can be frightened."

Blindsided, Wolf glanced at his aunt in confusion, but she refused to meet his eyes. He knew then that this - whatever had happened to change his brother into what he was now - was what she hadn't been telling him. It was no great leap for him to realize that Rafe had lost a child, and that the reason for her silence was because his own was on the way. Realizing how he would feel in Rafe's situation - how he _had_ felt fighting him for Virginia's life in Germany - he understood that he'd need to try a different tactic: a more sympathetic and less severe approach to questioning his brother. But while he lost himself trying to think of how he might do this, Rafe suddenly grasped him by the front of his jacket and yanked him forcefully forward, cracking his ribs against the bars of the cell.

"None of us should have been born!" he cried, punctuating each word by giving his brother a little shake. "It would have been more merciful! What good are our lives, living in constant fear of discovery, constant dread that our mates and children will be taken from us on a whim! As a game! It's better if we die! They'll have no one to hate then – then they can kill each other!" Rafe's spittle sprayed Wolf's face as he bent back from the bars where he was held fast, searching for some - any - sign of sanity in his brother's eyes and finding none. His hands closed on the black fabric of Rafe's greatcoat as he tried in vain to steady himself. The wound on his neck had torn open; he felt the hot blood trickling down into his shirt collar.

"You should have killed me!" his brother continued, shaking him harder. "I wanted you to kill me! I should have died!"

Wolf's head swam. He cemented his grasp on Rafe's coat and jerked back hard to free himself, slamming his brother face-first against the iron. Rafe's hands flew up, their grip on his lapels broken as he fell backwards to the floor where he lay still.

* * *

Virginia folded another of Wolf's shirts and stacked it neatly in the duffel on top the others. They'd never stay that way, she knew - duffelbags simply weren't suited to keeping their contents in unrumpled order - but they needed to be prepared to leave their carriage and hike if it became necessary – and the duffels were far more practical than trunks for that, without severely restricting their wardrobes. Backpacks would have been lighter, but she had no intention of spending several weeks in the same set of clothes again – and she frankly didn't want Wolf stealing things off people's clotheslines the way she suspected he had before either.

She sighed, thinking about her husband. He was asleep now, resting as he'd promised to do once he'd confronted his brother. His wound had started bleeding again, and he'd returned from the ordeal exhausted, but he had returned. And she felt foolish for the way she'd acted before he'd left. It had been necessary, she knew that now; had known it before, but hadn't wanted to face it; she was so tired of the whole thing, of trekking off trying to save the universe from itself. They'd been lucky before, but if they kept it up, sooner or later their luck would run out – and then what? She'd be left alone again, despite Wolf's good intentions, despite his promise to always be there to catch her.

The baby pounded a soft tattoo against the side of her stomach. She put her hand over the spot and rubbed it.

"I know," she murmured. "I'll still have you. But it won't be the same - _I_won't be the same."

Her old fears had come back when Wolf had collapsed in front of her, when Rafe had first been brought back. In the couple of days that had followed, as she'd sat in vigil by his bed, odd little snippets from all the mythology and folklore she'd read for his "research" popped forward into her thoughts. Some cultures, those with strong female heroes, had lore which suggested that the mystical male would be killed once he had passed on his seed, and that the female was then left to raise the child, who would take the father's place in the culture, and carry on the heroic tradition. It hadn't escaped her that she was now sitting in the land of the Five Women Who Changed History, nor that her Wolf could easily be construed as the personification of a shamanistic ideal. She'd wanted to take him and run away back to New York, to get them both jobs, go to work every day and live perfectly normal lives like perfectly normal people – to forget the doorway to this reality ever existed. But that, she knew, was not realistic either. Her husband was from this world, like it or not, and every time she looked at him, she'd be reminded of it; it was impossible to ignore. And, even if there were some foolproof method of sticking her head in the sand that way, it wasn't likely to do them any good. No one else had seemed interested in Wolf's insistence that the Central Park location of the portal from both mirrors was significant, but she knew he was right. Even if they ran away from the war, it would eventually seek them out even there.

Embarrassed by the unkind words she'd hurled in front of Wendell about the war being none of her affair, she had even taken the lead in planning for their present sojourn. Rafe hadn't revealed much after Wolf had (from what she'd heard) knocked him cold again, but he had mentioned that Gunther had been of the opinion that the dryad curse might have caused the curse presently on the Sixth Kingdom - and of course (though he hadn't said so) her brother-in-law had twisted the Prince's mind to believing the half-wolfs responsible. With a lack of further information, Wolf had then suggested, to everyone's agreement, that it might be wise to consult with the wizards again. Unfortunately, due to the impending war, he knew it would be impossible to summon them from anywhere inside the Fourth Kingdom. When Millie hit upon returning to their home village in the Second so he might make the attempt from there, Virginia had leapt upon it as if it were her personal mission.

So she continued folding the clothes, hoping her husband would be rested enough by the morning when they left, hoping the carriage would take them as far as they needed to go, hoping Wolf would be able to get the Wizard Council's attention, and of course, hoping to see her father again.

* * *

The carriage jostled, its springs not entirely absorbing the roughness of the rutted road. Claire sat back, her hand on her slightly rounded stomach, trying to relax. Her feet were cold despite the magically warmed brick on the floor – it was a bit too warm to rest her feet there permanently, but anywhere else felt too chilly. The rest of her snuggled down into the furs surrounding her and thought.

She was on her way at last to the summer home Gunther had provided as one of her wedding presents, although it was far from summer and the snow still lay thickly on the ground outside. Still, she dared wait no longer – she suspected most of her court were probably aware of her condition already and were discreetly ignoring it, unaware of her child's nature. She simply wasn't the kind to dismiss her personal servants and wear loose clothing for no apparent reason and she knew it. But even so, she had a responsibility to helping them keep up the pretense – she could not maintain decorum at court with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy so advanced it was impossible to ignore. Fortuitously, the sly guesses of her court and council actually aided her nebulous plans – although they paid lip service to insisting she take a full compliment of servants with her, they did not argue as much nor as long as would have been their custom when she refused to take even what they considered a bare minimum. Her closest advisor, however, had come very close to suggesting she at least take a midwife – although he hadn't described the servant as such; still, she'd known what he'd meant - and had feigned ignorance.

Gunther also had unwittingly helped her: by declining to appear on the appointed date for their betrothal announcement, he'd given her the ammunition she needed to postpone their wedding until well after her child was born - though the council's immediate and unanimous ratification of the delay only reinforced her opinion of their suspicions. She had not, to her chagrin, been so effective in reversing anti-wolf legislation.

In fact, there were only two victories she'd gained for the half-wolfs at all, and she was well aware that they were meager victories at best: First, she had managed to convince her council not to publicly repudiate Wendell for his pardon. Secondly, she'd been able to block a movement to prevent any Second Kingdom wolfs from relocating to the Fourth Kingdom. This second act had actually been quite easy – she'd simply convinced them that they were not only better off without extra half-wolfs around, but also that they'd be giving Wendell more than his pardon could handle. Neither accomplishment would be likely to stick, however, once Gunther arrived, and she knew it. Fortunately, by then her child would be born and - hopefully, if she were able to carry out the plan she had in mind - given to a half-wolf couple to raise as their own, and she'd be able to govern once more from a position of strength without feeling as if the laws she wished to make were solely being written to excuse her own behavior. Nevertheless, the atrocities committed in the meantime sickened her.

In his letter, Gunther had mentioned something about an ancient artifact he'd discovered – a device infused with magic that would kill any half-wolf instantly. He'd also raved on about some ancient lore he'd heard from a wandering bard that seemed to point to the entire half-wolf problem originating from the curse presently on the Sixth Kingdom. It was nonsense, of course – half-wolfs had obviously existed in her grandmother's day and the curse on the Sixth Kingdom had not gone into effect until long after that – but her stomach quailed at how many people would be killed simply to satisfy his bloodlust. She'd several times found herself hoping he would die in the process, although she felt guilty for that thought too.

She shifted in the seat and glanced out the window. It was late in the day and the overcast sky was just beginning to darken, casting long purple shadows into the woods. Then, between the trees, just past the boughs of a spruce which grew along a slight ridge on the opposite side of the stream that ran alongside the road, she glimpsed a riderless white horse. Without really thinking, she rapped on the carriage ceiling and the driver pulled to a stop.

"Yes, your Grace," the footman inquired, opening the door.

"That horse, did you see it?" she asked breathlessly. His expression told her he had not. She went on, "There was a white horse running in the woods. It bore the colors and the emblem of the royal house of the Eighth Kingdom."

This seemed to suitably impress him. She took the opportunity to climb down from her seat and stretch her legs.

"It's getting rather late, your Grace," he intoned. "If you wish I can have someone investigate the matter tomorrow."

"No, that won't be necessary," she told him. "I'll just have a look around now - it won't take long." In truth, she hadn't been completely certain that she'd seen the royal emblem. The colors had been correct – silver and blue – but she was well aware of what she'd been thinking at the time and knew she might have imagined it.

Absently, she followed the stream northwards. It was frozen solid this time of year, the ice piled intermittently with snow where a boulder protruded here and there from the bed. Careful not to slip and injure herself - or her baby - she trod gingerly along the snow-covered bank, her boots crunching in the packed powder. She was just about to return to her carriage, having become increasingly aware of both the driver's and the footman's eyes on her, when she saw it – a patch of color in the ice where none should have been. In trepidation, she inched toward it, staring transfixed and horrified as recognition dawned on her.

There, beneath the ice of the stream, frozen in a state of perfect preservation, lay Gunther, crown prince of the Eighth Kingdom.

She continued to stare, wondering if it were some trick, but the longer she looked, the more she was convinced it was true. His features were perfectly recognizable in the patch of transparent ice, and she could see the outline of one iridescent blue wing beneath him. The bluish fingers of his right hand protruded upwards from his icy grave, his palm cupping what appeared to be an intricately engraved gold watch. Oddly, the watch did not appear to be frozen.

As if in a trance, Claire reached down to it to be sure, exclaiming to herself in amazement when it came free at once. She straightened, peering at its decoration in the fading light. Her hand and arm went numb. Annoyed, she shook them, gasping as her limb tingled and a rush of power surged up her arm and down through the side of her chest to lodge deep inside her.

In her womb, something tore loose. She cried out as she fell, doubled in pain.


	13. XII Point and Counterpoint

XII - Point and Counterpoint

"Your Grace!"

She could hear the footman's steps thudding in the snow as he ran towards her. Carefully, she exhaled, then took another shaky breath. The worst of the pain had passed, although her body still carried its memory and she feared to move lest it return. She squeezed the watch in her hand, hastily pushing it into her coat pocket as the footman ran up beside her, puffing.

"Are you all – Oh!" he exclaimed as his eyes suddenly fell upon the frozen staring face of the prince of the Eighth Kingdom. "Oh, my Queen! How . . . ? Oh, turn your face, do not look!"

She would have laughed at his reaction had she not felt so weak, as if something were still wrong deep inside. Yet it was convenient that he thought the sight of Gunther had caused her collapse. She put out her hand and he helped her to stand, though her legs shook and she leaned against him without meaning to. Still misunderstanding what troubled her, he turned her carefully away from the sight of her betrothed's body before helping her back to the carriage.

Once there, she fought down the nausea that assailed her and told them to drive on to the summer cottage without stopping. They tried to argue, asking if it wouldn't be better to stop at the inn that night as planned, then return to report Gunther's fate, but she remained adamant. They would return and report his demise only _after_ she had reached the cottage; therefore, she said, it was necessary for them to drive into the night to reach it. If what she feared was happening to her came true, she could not afford to stop the night at an inn, she thought. And in any case it couldn't hurt them to press on for a few more hours. She leaned back against the upholstered seat and wedged a loose cushion behind the small of her back. Then, curiously, she dug the watch out of her pocket to examine it.

The contraction bore down on her with frightening intensity. Her knees drew up involuntarily to her chest, and she had to stick her hand in her mouth to keep from crying out. As it passed, she thrust the talisman once more into her coat pocket, vowing never to touch it again.

By the time they reached their destination, however, it had become obvious to her that her vow had made no difference. The pains came close together now, assailing her every few moments, forcing her to pant to catch her breath between them. She was sweating profusely, her clothes nearly soaked through with perspiration. The gust of frigid air that hit her as the footman opened the door sent a chill through her, though it revived her enough that she could order him to take her things inside and return immediately, and to catch his reply of, "As soon as the fire is laid," and overrule him.

"No," she insisted, surprised by how normal she managed to sound, "No fire. I'll handle that myself; I'm quite capable. Return at once."

He'd been startled, but had done what he was told. Both he and the driver had looked at her strangely as she ordered them off from her position a few steps away from the carriage, standing there in the snow-covered dark, the flakes falling softly around her, but her authority held. Stoically, she watched them disappear from sight before turning at last to the cottage.

She had known instinctively that movement would make the pains worse, and had held off entering the cottage until the servants had left lest she give herself away. Light from the lantern they'd left burning inside shone through the crack of the slightly ajar door. It wasn't far, less than a dozen yards, though they might as well have been leagues. Yet she knew her only chance to stop what was happening (she refused to name it) lay in getting inside.

_If I can just lie down and be still, it'll pass,_ she told herself, denying sharply the other voice which told her it was hopeless.

A contraction tore through her, harder than before, and she grabbed her stomach, fighting the urge to scream. Her foot caught a loose stone beneath the blanket of snow and she fell heavily onto the pavement, the shock of the fall jarring her, releasing all her anguish and grief in great wracking sobs, interrupted only by the need to hold her breath against another pain which came and went heedless of her suffering. The snow felt so cool against her fevered skin, she thought of lying there forever, waiting for the end, but the tiny thread of hope remaining which told her never to give up – that _she_ should not give up, pulled her laboriously to her feet and forced her to hobble on shaky legs the remainder of the way to the door.

* * *

Wolf leaned back in the seat of the carriage, cradling Virginia against his side as she slept. They had originally planned to leave the rather deluxe transportation at the border of the Fourth Kingdom so as to travel on without attracting too much attention, but the weather had turned foul, leaving a blanket of snow that thickened as they drove north, so that by the time they reached the Second Kingdom, remaining in the carriage had seemed the wisest course. Certainly he hadn't wanted his succulently pregnant wife sleeping out in the freezing cold, and he doubted his aunt did either. Wolfs had ways of preserving their own body warmth, but he could have done nothing to warm Virginia except cuddle close to her - not that he'd mind that whatsoever, but he didn't think it would be enough, really. He knew she'd only agreed to keep their coach because she was still worried about him getting injured in Germany, and although he'd ordinarily have protested that not only was the bite on his neck healing nicely, it had nothing to do with his ability to walk or keep warm, he'd offered only a token resistance. If it kept his lovely Virginia safe, he'd gladly pretend to be feeble.

In fact, his Auntie Millie had mentioned there being a summer cottage not far across the border (by coach) at which they could stop in their fancy carriage without attracting too much attention. The actual owners would be unlikely to use it in such weather, so they'd be safe and warm and he could summon the Council in relative privacy. He knew Wendell had been rather doubtful that he could in fact accomplish this feat when he'd never tried it before, but Wolf had a plan he was certain would work - quite simple when you understood the Council and everything it stood for, he thought - but it simply wasn't something he could get away with except in a dire emergency.

* * *

It was just at dusk, the sun disappearing into the forest leaving a pale amber afterglow. Virginia stirred beside him but didn't wake. He looked down at her face, as beautiful and serene in the waning mystical light as a princess he might wake from an enchanted sleep with a kiss, and felt his unborn daughter flutter beneath his hand. His heart nearly burst from his chest with joy and happiness, threatening to overwhelm him so that he nearly woke his sleeping wife with an exuberant bear hug and exclamation of undying devotion, but his aunt chose that moment to say, "This is it." Virginia awakened on her own, blinking, and sat up, rubbing her neck. He saw her other hand go to her ripening middle and knew she must be feeling the cub move herself, and this thought made his heart swell further with the knowledge that Happy Ever After was really happening for him; that nothing had yet happened to turn it into a horrible curse, which he still secretly feared it might, and the sheer joy finally overwhelmed him.

"Oh, Virginia!" he exclaimed, scooping his unsuspecting wife, who'd been peering out the window, into his arms as the carriage drew to a stop.

She jumped, startled, then turned around and smiled at him. He leaned in to kiss her just as the footman opened the door. Distracted, her eyes darted out to the immense half-timbered facade standing three and a half stories tall which towered before them.

"That's a cottage?" she asked in disbelief.

Smiling his most devilish smile, he lifted her from the seat and bore her out of the carriage just ahead of his aunt. But halfway across the snow-laden paving stones he halted, the scent which had come to him on the fresh, cold breeze freezing his heart.

"Oh, no," he whispered, stricken.

"What?" his wife asked, concern filling her voice.

_She doesn't know yet, _he thought. _I should get her inside before it's too late . . . if it's not already too late . . ._ But he couldn't make his feet move. "Virginia . . ." he whined, "Oh, no, Virginia, I'm so sorry . . ."

"WHAT?" she demanded, exasperated.

"It's not Virginia," his aunt's voice broke in decisively. "Look there." She pointed to their right, upwind of where they stood.

Virginia saw it a second before he did. "Oh, my God," she exclaimed. In a patch of disturbed snow lay a bright red stain, darkening now in the early evening light. Footsteps led up to it and away, towards the nearest door, the accompanying trail of blood splotches thicker as it reached the single step up into the house.

His wife struggled in his grasp, eager to be put down, but he held on tightly and turned around.

"Let's go back to the carriage," he said.

"What? No! Wolf, someone's hurt!"

"My aunt will take care of it," he assured her without stopping.

"But what if they need a doctor?" she insisted. "Aunt Millie can't carry someone out to the carriage . . ."

He tried to set her back inside on the seat, but she fought him by grabbing the doorframe.

"Wolf, stop it! I don't want to get back in!"

He gave up and set her down with a huff. To his surprise, she didn't rush at once to the bloody doorway, but stood with her hands on her hips facing him.

"What is the matter?" she demanded.

He swallowed. "It's birth blood, Virginia."

Her brow wrinkled as she digested what he'd said, making him long to smooth it. Finally she said, "Someone had a baby?"

"No, not . . . not really," he replied, then added, "It's bad. It's a bad sign."

"A bad sign?" she asked, still confused. "You mean like a bad omen or . . ." She trailed off as the realization came to her. "Or someone had a miscarriage."

He looked away.

"Wolf, I know that happens sometimes. You don't have to protect me from . . ." She stopped abruptly before finally continuing, "You thought it was me it was happening to, didn't you? To begin with."

He didn't answer. In retrospect, he felt foolish for jumping to that conclusion; the blood so obviously carried none of his beloved's scent. He'd simply been too worried that his happiness would be taken from him. But his mate didn't berate him; instead, she gently took his hand and pressed it to her womb, forcing him to feel the shifting, tumbling life inside. He gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, trying to blot the other unfortunate woman's scent from his mind.

Virginia, however, had stood in the snow long enough. "Wolf, my feet are freezing. Could we go inside now? I promise I won't freak out."

They were halfway there when Aunt Millie threw open the door, her face ashen.

"Hurry, come help me out!" she called. "She's still alive, but just barely."

Inside the smell was overpowering. He made out an indistinct form on the floor of the great hall, covered with a blanket before his aunt began issuing instructions.

"Virginia, could you go upstairs and lay a fire in the nearest bedroom? There should be kindling and wood already there; they usually keep these aristocratic retreats well stocked in the event they're wanted immediately. Simon, you'll have to carry her upstairs. Be careful – I don't think she's lost too much blood, but she's still running a high fever and she's been in here at least all day with no heat to speak of."

Virginia had dashed off immediately to start the fire, leaving Wolf to note curiously that his aunt was shaking as she bent to check once again on her patient. He thought this singularly odd since he'd seen her in this kind of situation before, and while she'd been sad, she had never let her emotions overwhelm her to this extent. But he kept his questions for later as he squatted beside the blanket-draped figure on the floor, a blonde mass of tangled hair all he could see of her head.

He carefully placed one hand behind her neck and the other beneath her knees to draw her towards him. As she rolled into his arms, her fevered skin hot against his palm, he caught the first sight of her face and gasped. Unconscious, her haughty expression was gone, but he knew the high cheekbones, long neck and full lips well, having made an effort to impress their likeness upon his memory at Wendell's coronation. The Queen of the Second Kingdom lay helpless, possibly dying, in his arms.

He looked up sharply at his aunt. "Do you know who this is?" he asked, his voice rough, wondering if this was what had caused her agitation. But, mistaking, as it did, his meaning, her reply left him in confusion.

"No," she said, "I've never met her," then reached behind where she crouched for a small, pillowcase-wrapped bundle. But for the bloodstains and the reverent way she handled it, he would have thought it nothing but so much wadded material. He knew, however, what it was and his stomach lurched at the thought. He did not want to see it, especially not now; could feel his bile rise as he broke into a sweat.

"No," he pleaded, his voice no more than a whisper.

"You don't have to look," she assured him, her voice equally hushed. "Just smell."

_No, not that; not even that,_ he pleaded silently, certain his stomach would rebel entirely. But the fragrance of death had no age; it was as it ever was, a strangely natural thing. And beneath it lay the surprise, the shock which had overcome his aunt when she'd entered the house and discovered them. The dead cub was his kin - his brother's child.

Wolf carried his sister-in-law numbly up to the room where Virginia had almost finished starting the fire, while his aunt took the cub's remains to a safe place. He'd said nothing further to Aunt Millie about the mother's identity, feeling somehow instinctively that it might be easier for her to handle the queen's care without the added burden of knowing who, exactly, she was.

As he laid her carefully in the bed, his wife stood, brushing her hands briskly together first, and then on the sides of her coat.

"I'll see if Millie needs any more help," she announced, and dashed out the door before he could untangle himself from his charge. He covered his brother's mate with the blanket from the bed, then stood a moment more, wondering whether to leave her alone, but the image of Virginia unwittingly coming upon the contents of the bloody pillowcase overwhelmed him (never mind that his aunt would be there to prevent it) and he charged out of the room after his wife.

He was halfway down the stairs when he saw her, standing in the hall, the ruined, red fur coat of Her Royal Highness folded over one arm, staring intently at something on the floor. His eyes picked it out and he instinctively recoiled. _Hate . . . loathing . . . malice . . . revenge . . . death_ assailed him relentlessly in wave upon wave, leaving him unable to draw a breath. Unsuspecting, his beloved reached for it, curiously. Forcing the entire bulk of his will against the onslaught, he screamed, "Virginia, _NO!"_

He was over the banister and leaping across the generous expanse of hall in a single motion, no thought of anything but to stop her from touching the fragment of evil until he slammed into her bodily, forcing himself to claw anxiously at her skirts, her legs, her hips, to keep her from falling as he twisted himself to land beneath her and cushion the blow. She landed on him heavily, the fur coat she'd been holding wadded between them. He heard her gasp, try to say something, and gasp again; heard his aunt's feet pounding towards them in response to the crash; knew she'd be upon it any moment as he struggled to sit up, still gently cradling his now angrily flailing wife.

"WOLF!" his sweetheart finally managed to gasp out, "What the _HELL_ do you think you're doing?" She tried to pull away, but he held onto her fast, shouting past her, "Auntie, STOP! Go back! Don't get closer!"

"Wolf, have you lost your mind?" Virginia demanded. "You could have seriously hurt the baby! Let go of me!" But his aunt, mercifully, stopped

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

It took both his hands to restrain the struggling Virginia, so he pointed as best he could by gesturing furiously with his head, a whine escaping him. Naming it wasn't something he could bring himself to do.

Aunt Millie looked down, then back up at him cautiously. "Are you _seeing_ something?" she asked. He knew what she meant; she always called it that whenever he'd been able to detect the presence of magic in one form or another, though it wasn't how he would have chosen to describe what he did. The impression the thing gave him had nothing to do with its visual appearance. Nevertheless, he nodded, once, then more emphatically.

"Yes," he said.

Abruptly, Virginia stopped struggling. He felt, rather than saw, her look up at his face, then back over at the thing lying on the hall floor. "What, that watch?" she asked. "It fell out of her coat pocket."

"It's not a watch," he said. "It's . . ." He still couldn't name it; didn't want to even think about what it was or what it was for, finally just settling on, "It's bad."

His aunt gave it a wide berth as she walked over and squatted beside them.

"Simon," she began softly, her voice gentle, "Is that what caused her . . ." she glanced upwards to indicated who she meant " . . . to lose her baby?"

He squeezed his eyes shut against the hate and malignancy he still felt pouring from it, held tightly to his wife, and nodded. "Yes," he finally gasped. "I think . . . Yes."

In his arms he felt Virginia stiffen.

"Oh my God," she murmured. "Oh my God. Wolf . . . I almost . . ."

He hugged her harder.

"How are we going to get rid of it?" he heard his aunt ask.

"Oh, yes," agreed Virginia. "We can't just leave it here. Someone could find it. But if we can't touch it . . ."

"I'll have to bring the Council here," he said.

"Oh, that's right," said his wife. "I forgot about that. You were going to do that anyway. It's not going to interfere with your being able to summon them, is it?"

"No," he said, thinking, _Not technically._ But it would, he knew, make the job much more difficult since he would now have to bring them to his location rather than allowing them to take him to theirs, which he knew they'd prefer to do. He just hoped he was capable of it.

* * *

Tony leaned forward in the overstuffed, chintz-covered chair and studied Samantha's inert form for what felt like - and may have been - the millionth time.

She lay motionless on a bed, white sheets draped over her, matching the whitewash of the walls, making her pale complexion look even paler by comparison, her breathing shallow. No IVs protruded from her arms, no feeding tube or catheter was necessary in this abode of magic. Yet while his ears took in the sound of seagulls and of waves crashing on the jagged rocks beneath the open window and his eyes had long since examined every minute detail of the rough-walled, pie-shaped wedge of room high in a pinnacle of tower, none of it hid the fact that he sat in a hospital at the bedside of a woman in a coma.

But even that was not strictly true, he thought sadly. Samantha – the part of her that made her unique – was not present at all. The face that lay in repose upon the pillow, cheeks flaccid and sallow, limp brown hair sprinkled with strands of gray, was almost the face of a stranger. Until he had seen her like this, he had never realized exactly how much of herself she projected into her appearance. If asked before she had gone to fight the witch in the Deadly Swamp, he would have described her as striking and vibrant. Here, as nothing but an empty shell, she was merely plain. And although he didn't want to, he couldn't help but compare her to Christine, who had been beautiful even in death. Not that that was a desirable thing to be, he reasoned. Some obscure quote he'd heard his old man say popped unexpectedly into his mind: "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse." What was the purpose in that anyway?

Guiltily, he realized he'd been comparing Samantha to the dead and mentally berated himself. But he wondered, sadly, if she wouldn't be better off that way. It had been nearly two months now. From what he recalled - which admittedly wasn't much - he didn't think there was a whole lot of hope that she'd somehow wake up - at least not as the person he had too briefly known.

He coughed and looked away - down at the pile of books they - the other wizards - had brought for him to read, and selected one at random. _The Enchantment of Eglantine,_ he read. That was a new one, he thought. Good. He'd been getting tired of re-reading the things Grimm had written down for his world; even the newness of discovering the differences between the versions had worn off. He sat back, opened the book and began to read it aloud, for no other reason than he'd once read somewhere that it was good for a person in a coma to be talked to.

* * *

Darkness lay thickly around her. She sat up on the dry, bare earth of the floor, squinting, trying to focus, but it was like peering into the heart of a cave. Momentary panic seized her, but she fought it down, forcing herself to analyze the facts she had at hand.

What was the last thing she remembered? she asked herself. Wendell's castle? No. She'd been going somewhere, somewhere with a group of women. Where?

As if in answer, a humid, mildewy odor wafted through the cave (for lack of a better thing to call her location) past her nose and triggered a memory. The swamp, she thought? Perhaps, but . . .

She was suddenly aware of another presence beside her; mock-exasperation seemed to emanate from a place just off to her left. As she sensed it, wry amusement took its place.

_Have you forgotten your teachings?_ she seemed to hear. _Common sight won't work on this plane. Plane?_ she echoed, confused. _What plane am I on and how did I get here?_

But the voice did not answer. She could tell it was waiting.

_All right; my teachings,_ she acknowledged. _I'm not on the material plane; that's all that's necessary for me to know._ Concentrating, which was surprisingly easy here where she could see nothing anyway (_make a mental note to take students into a cave for instruction_), she focused her inner eye - and abruptly took a step backwards as her surroundings snapped to life.

_Focus a little harder,_ came the continuing advice. Taking it was another matter entirely. Its source towered high over her, dead black head lost in the cavernous darkness of the cavern ceiling except for the twin amber orbs of its eyes, whirling in hypnotic cadence. Her companion was a dragon.

She blinked in awe at its sheer immensity, then again as it seemed to disappear before her eyes. _Am I just not focusing hard enough?_ she wondered, although the glistening stone of the cavern walls remained faintly visible in the distance.

"It also helps if you know what you're looking for," the same voice informed her, this time not inside her head. It sounded vaguely amused. Samantha's eyes dropped to its source. Less than ten feet in front of her a black-clad man sat on a pile of jumbled boulders, regarding her with eyes of such a pale hazel they appeared to be amber. She gasped and stared. "Do you know what you're looking for?" he asked pointedly.

Her mind flew immediately to the obvious, _A way out of here, off this plane,_ but she knew inherently that wasn't what he'd meant. He smiled, his eyes sparkling as they crinkled at the corners and she realized he could still read her thoughts.

"You're one of the Guardians," she blurted.

His dark eyebrows flew up, losing themselves amidst the mop of unruly black hair as he looked around the empty cavern speculatively.

"The term 'Guardian' implies something which needs guarding," he commented.

_A test,_ she thought. _I should have known. Of course he would speak only in riddles._

He leaned back his head and laughed, a clear, joyous sound. "Oh, dear, I hope not," he declared, still smiling, showing even, white, very un-dragon-like teeth. "I'm terrible at riddles. I always have been."

Something in his statement struck her as wrong. But she knew she was on the wrong track as soon as she'd said, "But you have to be good at riddles. You're a dr . . ."

He'd only stared kindly at her. "Guardian?" he asked, and then she knew.

"'Always,'" she said. "You said 'always.' But how could you have 'always' been or done anything? The word itself implies a passage of time and for you there isn't any."

"There isn't?"

Confused, she shook her head, then said, "I'd always assumed that was how it would be for a Guardian of Time - that you'd have to be outside of time in order to guard it properly."

He leaned his head forward somewhat conspiratorially. "Tell me," he said, "Why would time need to be guarded? Is it likely to be stolen?"

Taken aback, she retorted, "You _are_ telling riddles after all."

He shook his head in dismissal, his eyes dancing. "No, I absolutely am not. I'm not saying anything like 'it's a slipper on a foot that walks through grass on the moon,' am I?"

She blinked, turning the statement over in her mind. "No," she murmured as the rest of her brain desperately tried to piece together the solution.

"There is no solution to that," he told her, mildly exasperated. "And I just made the thing up, so I doubt there's some accidental answer to it either. I told you I was terrible at it."

"Well then, why all the mystery about it?" she demanded. "Why not just come out and say what you mean?"

"Because it doesn't work that way," he said. "It's not about me or what I think. It's you. What do _you_ want? What are _you_ looking for? And this time don't limit yourself to such an unimaginative perspective. I'd think being a necromancer would make it easy."

_Easy?_ she thought. _How would being a necromancer help? Unless . . ._ "Perspective," she murmured, hearing once again in her memory the voice of her teacher as he expostulated on the nature of magic, death and the dead: "It's merely another frame of reference; a difference in perspective."

She looked up. "You're dead, aren't you?"

He smiled. "From which point of view?"

"Mine."

"Then yes, I suppose I am."

A chill ran through her. _All the dragons . . . gone. That was how . . . the Guardians . . ._

She didn't notice him approaching her, but he was suddenly holding her in his arms like a child, wiping away her tears.

"No," he said. "There's nothing to be sad about. Not really. Not ever. The trick in the search is just to be looking for the right thing. Don't wait like I did, to be happy here. You can reach it now, see?"

In front of her the floor seemed to fall away, but safely tucked within his arms she felt no fear at its sudden disappearance. As she watched, the space far below resolved itself into the black-and-white tiles of King Wendell's ballroom, lit by candlelight. Slowly, five figures appeared in a circle. Each wore a crown and Samantha could see they were all women: A black-haired woman in a white dress with a black corset, three blondes, one in a red cloak, one in braids and a dirndl skirt, and the last with hair so long and thick it obscured her costume. The fifth was a redhead in a long blue-green dress. Each raised her right hand and she saw they all wore rings. They pointed at the tile on the center of the floor between them and lines of visible power shot forth, momentarily blinding her. When she looked again, a window had opened where the tile had once been, revealing a land of verdant beauty overlooked by a golden castle with snapping pennants. Four of the queens - all but the redhead whose back was to her - raised their eyes to Samantha and winked. Then the scene went out and the floor of the cavern rushed back to fill the void.

"Did you never wonder what made them great?" the dragon asked. "They were all simply looking for the right thing: Happy ever after is only a matter of perspective." He released her and stood up, then seemed to momentarily go out of focus. _Like this,_ she heard in her head and realized she was looking at his dragon form again, the scaly, black-beribboned head far above her. Then the cavern went dark.

_Perspective,_ she thought. Her heart lurched. _Was it possible?_ She'd never really dared to think that someone like her - a peasant-faced woman from a peasant background . . . _No, does that imply time? Or only nonexistent limitations?_ In her mind's eye she saw the dragon's grin, disembodied, as if only that part of him remained. And then she knew. What she'd been looking for had been right in front of her. She simply hadn't seen it. _No perspective._

* * *

Tony put the book down without finishing it. It was getting late and the light was starting to fail. He knew he could have lit some candles but it somehow didn't seem worth it - even the book was a disappointment, nothing but _Sleeping Beauty_ with a different title. And it wasn't as if Samantha could hear it anyway, he thought dejectedly._ I'm only deceiving myself with that 'read to her and she'll be fine' crap anyway, _he thought. _And haven't I done enough of that 'head in the sand' stuff with Christine already?_

He swallowed, surprised at the comparison he'd just made, but the lump in his throat didn't go away. _Oh, well that's just dandy,_ he thought sarcastically. _Is that what I'm doing here? Some kind of atonement for previous guilt? So what did she do to deserve that, huh?_ He wiped the wetness away from his eyes and glanced around, frantically searching for something to take his mind away from its present train of thought. His eyes landed on the book he'd been reading.

"Oh, that's no help!" he exclaimed out loud. In fact, he thought it was a damned insult. He hadn't finished this version, but he knew how it would end: Some prince was gonna come by a hundred years later who'd never even met Eglantine, kiss her awake and they'd live Happy Ever After. It made him want to puke. So the stupid princess was beautiful. So what? Physical beauty - the kind that made a good-looking corpse - meant nothing. He should know. A woman with real beauty - that shone from the inside - would never have a chance in hell of someone saving her, because in that kind of stasis it just flat wouldn't show up. It would be invisible to anyone who didn't personally know her.

_Sleeping._

He blinked, then tried to shake the idea away. _No,_ he told himself firmly. _It'd never work._ But his glance traveled to Samantha's inert form and stayed there._Only suppose . . ._

His heart began to race. _No, stop,_ he thought. _You're just getting your hopes up over nothing. It's not possible._ To his chagrin, he found himself arguing: _Tony, you're in a pie-shaped room in a magical tower. Is __**that**__ possible?_ followed by: _You're setting yourself up for failure just like you did with the bouncy castles when Virginia was little. Keep your feet on the ground where they belong._

"No," he said out loud. "No, it's not me. It's not about whether I will be disappointed or am being realistic. It's not about me at all."

He got up and sat down on the bed beside her. She slept quietly on, as unresponsive to the hand he touched to her cheek as she was to his sudden nearness. Feeling foolish, as his rational voice had told him he would, he glanced up at the door. It remained firmly shut. But strangely, it wouldn't have mattered if a crowd had appeared. He simply couldn't _not_ try.

Slowly he bent down and pressed his lips to hers.

He didn't know what he thought would happen. Something magical, reminiscent of the ending to Disney's _Beauty and the Beast,_ maybe; a ripple that would spread through everything - or at least the two of them - and her eyes would flutter open. But it seemed all too sordid and real: although her lips were warm, they didn't kiss him back, just passively took the pressure from his and went on, unchanging. Not a muscle in her face reacted. Tony sat up and sighed sadly.

"Oh, well," he murmured. "It was worth a try." He groped for her hand and held it. "I'm only sorry I didn't think of that sooner - like before all this happened, for instance. You'd think I'd learn by now that not everything lasts forever."

In his hand, he felt hers move slightly and he looked down at it in disbelief. Had he imagined it, he wondered, until he felt it again - her fingers had definitely moved. He glanced from her hand to her face, noticing then that her breathing had subtly changed. Laying her hand at her side, he took her gently by the shoulders.

"Samantha?" he whispered, his voice caught in his throat. Was it possible? Had his kiss really awakened her after all? His stomach twisted and he felt light-headed; both giddy and terrified at the same time, until she opened her eyes and looked at him.

For a moment neither of them moved, then Samantha's brow furrowed and she gasped and clutched at him. Without thought, his arms slid beneath her and he drew her tightly to him.

* * *

The half moon hung crisply in the winter sky over the eastern horizon. From her position just outside the door of the cottage, Virginia stared at it and shivered. Her husband stood a distance away in the eastern garden, his tall frame outlined in the silvery light, hair blowing in the cold, wafting breeze, his bearing resolute and proud.

He hadn't wanted her to watch, but she'd insisted and he'd finally given in, kissing her and regarding her with an expression full of reproach. But as he'd looked away, his countenance had changed to one of grim determination. Looking at it, she suddenly had no trouble believing that her Wolf was capable of wielding magic, something she'd found difficult to imagine only moments before. The realization sent a chill down her spine, and with sudden clarity she understood that this was what he hadn't wanted her to see.

He took a deep breath and faced the moon, throwing his head back and bathing himself in her light. Though she was too far away to tell, Virginia somehow knew his eyes were closed. Then, his posture and stance altered, and he stood tall and straight, his right hand pointed out and down. Electricity snapped in the air; she smelt ozone. A silvery course of light shot from Wolf's hand to the ground. He turned, and the light continued, unwinking, until he had drawn an invisible circle in the snow surrounding him. The light shut off. She saw him look up, the cant of his head proud, waiting.

He didn't wait long.

Virginia's ears popped as three men materialized in flashes of golden light just outside of the circle her husband had drawn around himself. He seemed surprised, but stood his ground. The one directly in front of him raised his hand.

"No!" Virginia cried involuntarily. It did no good; she watched helplessly as Wolf recoiled under the invisible attack. Yet he didn't submit.

The other two wizards added their power to that of the first. She heard her husband gasp and for the first time, saw the circle he'd drawn glow with power. Something about their wordless attack angered her and she ran out into the snow-filled garden in outrage - and collided with an invisible wall.

Momentarily knocked senseless, she had no recollection of exactly what happened next; one moment she was running towards the head wizard, the next she was sitting on the ground in the snow, her skirts soaked through and the sky split open. There was a blinding flash of light, then darkness all around except for a single strange man who walked up to her and held out his hand. She took it and got to her feet, squinting at him to get a better look. A gutted torch by a snow-covered garden bench to her right flared to life and she saw him: old, his never-attractive face turned to leather, white tufts of hair like sprigs of unplucked feathers on his liver-spotted head, ears like Dumbo, mouth shrunken in toothlessness. But within this vessel of ugliness and age his eyes danced with joyful life. He turned to Wolf and released her to him.

"Here ye go," he said, his voice like a rusty hinge. Wolf took Virginia's hand and bowed deeply.

"Master!" a strange voice called. "Master! He injured Vannik!"

The old man glanced towards the call. So did Virginia. The two lesser wizards were bent over their prone companion. "That filthy wolf attacked him!" one of them snarled. "I knew it would happen! I always knew it! We should never have let him into . . ."

His words were abruptly cut off as all three vanished from sight. The old man turned back to the two of them, but said nothing. Virginia could feel her husband shaking, as much from apprehension as from whatever had happened that she'd missed; whatever had injured the wizard that had just been dispatched away. She heard him start to whine. Evidently, so did the old man.

"Well?" he prompted in a tone that said he didn't have all night. With a shock, Virginia realized he was waiting for the explanation of why Wolf had summoned him.

"It's in the house," she croaked out.

"It?"

"Yes, the . . . uh . . ."

"The death-watch," Wolf finished for her after he'd apparently realized he wasn't going to be dispatched along with the others.

The old man cocked an eyebrow.

"Death-watch?" he rasped. "Take me to her."

Inside the house, he contemplated it silently, then looked up at Wolf.

"Ye'll have te go," he declared.

Virginia started to pull her husband from the room, but he didn't budge, just sighed, "I know," and she realized then that the old wizard meant he must go with him. She started to protest, but he seemed to read her thoughts.

"Ye kin come too," he told her, then thought a moment and added, "All of ye."

Wolf glanced upstairs doubtfully. "But she . . ." he began.

"I ken who she is," came the response. Then, to Millie, who'd been hanging back in the shadows, he said, "And aye, him too, as yer thinkin'. The innocent victim." Wolf's aunt turned and hurried briskly back into the depths of the cottage.

The old man returned to regarding the gold watch.

"W-what is it?" ventured Virginia, wondering as soon as she'd spoken if questions were allowed.

Apparently they were. He glanced up at her sadly and said, "The curse."

* * *

Less than five minutes passed before Wolf and Virginia found themselves virtually alone in a corridor of the Wizards' Citadel. Aunt Millie and Queen Red, Wolf knew, had doubtless been whisked off to some other location, most likely the infirmary, at the same time that Grandmaster Roscoe had brought Virginia and him to the main hall. Predictably, a swarm of people had collected around the old wizard to inquire as to his needs. He'd briefly introduced the both of them as his guests, then vanished without further explanation. It hadn't taken long for the sycophants to disappear themselves, although they did it more mundanely.

"How can they just ignore us like this?" asked Virginia for about the third time.

Wolf didn't answer. By now he knew her question was rhetorical, and that the reason – that he was a wolf and everyone knew it – hadn't satisfied her. "Let's hurry up and see if we can find Tony," he said instead, starting briskly off down the corridor they'd wandered into after winding up alone in the receiving hall. Virginia put her hand on his arm and stopped him.

"Wolf," she said, her voice serious. "Dad will wait. Tell me what's going on."

He looked down at her sweet face, her enormous blue eyes both knowing and so trusting of him. He swallowed, sighing heavily. Finally, he said, "Virginia, when I summoned them, I . . ." then swallowed again, before continuing, "I mean I didn't really _summon_ them, I just . . ."

"You just what?" she prompted.

"I just cast a spell," he finally said. "It's not allowed – I'm not allowed to do it, so I knew they'd come – well, actually I knew they'd just take me, which is why . . ."

"Wolf," she said. He quieted and looked at her. "Slow down. You're saying you didn't really summon them, you just did some magic to get their attention?"

He nodded.

"And that they'd have just . . . um . . . teleported you here by yourself except that you did something to keep them from doing that?"

"Yes!" he nodded emphatically. "Yes, I drew that protection circle – and that took enough magic that they noticed."

"Okay," she said slowly. "But why is this a big deal?"

"Because it's not allowed! It's very bad, what I did. Once someone who's learned how to cast spells decides to leave, they can never use their magic again. If they do, there's a penalty . . ."

Her eyes bored into his, alarmed. "What kind of penalty?"

"It depends on the severity of the offense," he told her. "It's decided at a trial. Oh, Virginia, right now I should be in the dungeon, so I think really that just being ignored is okay."

"You deliberately did something you knew would get you thrown into a dungeon?!" she exclaimed incredulously.

"Huff puff, I had no choice!" he insisted. "It was there! No one could touch it and it wasn't going to go away. We had no idea where it came from in the first place and Queen Riding Hood wasn't in any condition to tell us . . ."

Virginia's eyes widened a bit more. "Queen Riding Hood?" she asked.

"Yes, that was her. Didn't you recognize her from Wendell's coronation?"

She shook her head as if trying to clear a fog from it. "Never mind," she finally said. "So why aren't you _in_ the dungeon now?"

"I think because Grandmaster Roscoe told everyone we were his guests," he surmised. Then, anxious to change the subject, he quickly added, "Let's go find Tony."

* * *

Tony and Samantha's time alone with each other was, unfortunately, short-lived. It seemed to Tony as if all the wizards in the Citadel needed to see for themselves that Samantha'd broken free from the curse she'd been under and they'd come dribbling and drabbling in, some just to stare, others to officiously grill her on her experience, and a few who acted as if they were her doctor, touching her forehead and feeling for a pulse. She took it all a lot more calmly that he would have, and in fact, the only thing stopping him from giving them all a piece of his mind was her hand squeezing his, imploring him to just be patient. He did the best he could, but what really irked him was when she'd explained - after the first person asked her how she'd gotten free of the curse - that Tony had kissed her awake, and the guy'd essentially told her she must have had a delusion. Tony'd wanted to grab him by the throat and throw him through the window, but she'd clamped her hand down on his fingers so hard that it hurt and he'd managed to let it pass. After that, she'd simply said she had no idea how she'd gotten free and Tony had plastered a false smile on his face, behind which he not-so-secretly wondered when everyone was going to shut up and go away.

He was nearly to the point where he was going to just blurt the question out loud when the ten or so wizards that had crowded into the chamber looked suspiciously at the air surrounding them. A few minutes later, there was a momentary flash of light, and another man stood in their midst - an old geezer, Tony noted, with a leathery, liver-spotted head and no teeth, wearing a pair of ragged overalls and a stained shirt. But despite his rustic appearance, it was obvious that the others deferred to him. One of them even came forward, bowed, and called him 'Master', reminding Tony eerily of Murray. The geezer, Tony noted with satisfaction, regarded the toady with a vague contempt.

"What're ye'll doin' heer?" he muttered.

All of them looked distinctly uncomfortable at his words. Several in the back, nearest the door, fled. Tony smiled. He was going to like this guy.

"Git," he added.

They got.

Once the room had cleared, the old guy regarded the two of them somberly, chewing his tongue.

"Whar's yer dotter?" he finally asked.

Tony blinked.

"Virginia?" he said. "I don't know. Is she here? I thought she was at Wendell's . . ." Tony trailed off when the old man seemed to stop listening and start staring at the wall. After a moment, he realized the wall was beginning to glow.

"Wolf, I don't think I want to walk up all those steps unless I know for a fact that Dad's up there," he heard Virginia's voice say. Her face appeared as if projected on the wall immediately afterwards.

"Oh, well, I could run up and see," Wolf's voice replied. The viewpoint changed to show him, as if a camera on the both of them had pulled back. They stood at the bottom of a flight of narrow, curved stone stairs that wound upwards out of sight, holding hands. Virginia's free hand absently stroked her very swollen belly. Tony gasped out loud; she looked huge._ How long have I been here?_ he wondered suddenly.

Wolf's head suddenly jerked as if he'd heard something.

"What?" asked Virginia.

Her husband smiled. "You won't have to walk up all these stairs," he told her. "Grandmaster Roscoe's going to take us right there."

No sooner had he spoke than they appeared in a flash of light similar to the one in which the old wizard had arrived.

"Dad!" exclaimed Virginia, running up to him and giving him a hug. He embraced her warmly, then held her away from him for a good look.

"Have I been here that long?" he asked.

"Two months," she told him, patting herself on the tummy, "But I know. I'm really big for six months pregnant."

"_That's_ six months pregnant?" he asked, incredulously, then, more quietly added, "It's not twins, is it?"

"They don't think so," she managed to reply before Roscoe interrupted them.

"Ye'll be over thar," he said to Virginia, pointing to the far corner of the room. "And ye," he said to Wolf.

Surprised, Virginia shrugged and walked over to where he'd indicated. Tony started to follow her, but the old wizard stopped him.

"No, stay w' her," he said.

He sat back down on the bed next to Samantha and took her by the hand. She squeezed it without looking at him and he felt warmth pour out of the contact and into him.

"'S an artifact," Roscoe stated as a preamble before a gold watch appeared, hovering in the air above the bed. Tony had only enough time to briefly wonder why it seemed surrounded by a haze of light before he felt Samantha shrink away from it with a gasp.

"What?" he asked, worried. When she continued to cringe, whimpering, even after the old guy'd made the watch-thing disappear, the notion suddenly came to him that she might suffer a relapse. He drew her to him and stroked her on the back like a child. "It's gone," he whispered. "It's okay, it's all gone."

After a moment she drew a ragged breath and gave him a tight squeeze before looking up at her superior.

"Well?" was all he asked.

Tony opened his mouth to tell the old fart what he could go do with himself, but this time Samantha stopped him by laying her finger softly on his lips.

"Yes," she said breathlessly. "It was the same. That was the same power that had trapped me."

* * *

Virginia leaned back into the warmth of Wolf's arms in the oversized, overstuffed chair in the corner of Samantha's sickroom, feeling the child within her roll and tumble, stretching first one way and then bumping about in another. Wolf's hands rested on her swollen abdomen, and she knew he could feel it too. Her chest ached with joy; incongruously, it reminded her of the silly cartoon about the Grinch and how his three-size-too-small heart had finally grown larger than any other. It was exactly how she felt now. _Was my heart too small before?_ she wondered. _Is that why I thought I never wanted any of this?_ The love she felt radiating from herself threatened to shake and overwhelm her in its intensity, almost as if her body were too small and fragile to contain it. She turned to her husband and squeezed him hard, burying her face in his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut, tears of happiness burning them.

"Are you all right?" he half-whispered, the baritone of his voice rumbling softly in the sounding board of his chest.

She nodded.

"Perfect," she murmured, nestling her face into the crook of his neck and sighing with contentment. He hugged her closer and stroked her back.

Across the room, rising from the background murmur of voices she'd paid scant attention to since Roscoe had banished the death-watch, an act which had seemed to trigger the swelling of her heart, Samantha's voice rose in a grim counterpoint to her elation:

"_Upon a hill in the world of old  
Sleeps a story that remains untold;  
Sit back, you must learn this lesson well -  
Of a kingdom cursed by a great spell... _

_Imagine a land, fair and serene  
Where lived the dryads, gentle has been;  
But the peace there was to end quite soon  
Come Midwinter's Eve, full of the moon. _

_Of the kingdom that once had thrived  
In the end, not a creature survived;  
The land turned barren, desolate, dry,  
Out of the dark came a piercing cry._

_The Basquel Queen, near her time to end -  
A broken heart that would never mend -  
By her hand, seeing her love's great pain,  
Determined to save what did remain.  
_  
_In whispered voice, with her final breath  
The grim promise she sealed with her death -  
She gathered her strength, her eyes now closed  
And wove these last words, so full of woe: _

_"My love, my hate with this one last spell  
I curse your people and hide them well;And I promise you with all my heart  
But a child twixt two may break apart." _

"That's what we know of the curse," the necromancer added.

The anguish and sheer destructive power described in it made Virginia suddenly catch her breath. The rush of love she'd felt - and still basked in - held a vast, unbridled power. If turned to hate and unleashed, especially by someone with the ability to focus it with magic, it would be impossible to withstand. She shivered at the thought, while at the same time her heart ached for the sad Basquel Queen and the agony she must have felt to enable her to cast such a terrible curse.

"This line," said Roscoe, "'I curse yer people an' hide 'em well' - What make ye o' that?" Evidently the question was rhetorical, since he continued almost immediately with, "The death-watch, the directed hunts, even the reason's bin given fer the war - ever'thin's bin aginst the half-wolfs."

In her arms, Virginia felt Wolf suddenly stiffen.

"You think the half-wolfs are the people she cursed?" asked Samantha curiously. "How? By causing the other peoples of the kingdoms to hate them or by making them into half-wolfs?"

Virginia stroked Wolf's arm and looked up at his face. He seemed to be staring intently at the three people across the room, except that his eyes had a somewhat glazed appearance.

"He said," he began, but his voice failed and he had to start again to project it loudly enough for them all to hear, "That doctor said I was human, according to the tests he did."

Virginia sat up straight, astounded.

"That's right, he did!" she exclaimed, looking over at her father, "Dr. Oberon ran some tests on Wolf's genes and he said he was as human as the rest of us!"

Her father blinked.

"You're kidding."

"No, really!"

"You mean this werewolf thing really is a curse, just like in all those bad movies?" asked Tony.

_Was it?_ she wondered, looking again at Wolf, who was now staring silently into the corner. _If so, what would happen to him when it was broken? Would he transform suddenly into an ordinary man? How much would he change?_ Her exposed heart suddenly quailed, panic seizing her. _What if . . . No, stop it, Virginia. He loves you. It won't make a difference. _She forced herself to stop dwelling on the subject, but the small seed of doubt remained, nonetheless, whispering _only wolfs mate for life . . ._

". . . nearly succeeded," Roscoe was saying as she came out of her mental wanderings. "And might still; she's doin' poorly, an' w' the father's bein' pissessed . . ."

"What?" Virginia whispered.

"Queen Red," her husband murmured into her ear. "Her baby, it was . . . it was Rafe's."

She turned to stare at him incredulously. "Rafe's?!" she hissed, "As in: your brother Rafe?"

His eyes regarded her with an apologetically pleading look, which she took for a yes.

"But how could . . . I mean, she's the queen of the Second Kingdom!"

"Yeah."

"Exa-tly the point," Roscoe turned and informed her. "Who hates wolfs more? What makes it hardist te break?"

"Oh, my God," she murmured. He had to be right, she thought. The member of royalty whose child would break the curse had to be Red Riding Hood the third. And it seemed ironically obvious now that the father of her child would of course need to be a half-wolf.

* * *

Dr. Oberon closed the door to his office behind him after gesturing for Virginia to be seated. She perched herself nervously on the edge of a cushioned chair as she watched him cross to his desk, where he plunked himself down, facing her.

"You're wonderfully healthy, Virginia," he told her. "As always. The baby's heartbeat is fast, but still within the normal range - and considering the vitals I took from Wolf, probably exactly normal."

"You . . . said he was human . . . somehow?" she ventured.

"Yes, the genetic samples I took from him were consistent with that."

She looked away, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to say. They'd asked her to get him to come help Queen Riding Hood, but she had no idea how to ensure he'd agree.

"This is the first visit you've had where he hasn't come with you," he observed. "Is he all right?"

"Oh! Oh, yes, he's fine. Completely recovered," she assured him. "He, um, broke a rule at this place and he kind of has to stay there and help them with stuff for awhile, but it's no big deal."

She hoped that would explain it. She especially didn't want Dr. Oberon to start out with a negative opinion of the Wizards' Council, but she also didn't want to go into the long, detailed explanation of exactly what Wolf had done and why and what it all meant to the wizards. At least, she didn't want to if she could help it.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked her. "Anything I should know about . . . now?" He gestured vaguely around his office, where they were able to speak privately.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," she assured him. "In fact, I feel wonderful."

"Good," he said. "Baby not too active for you then? I noticed it was quite lively during your exam."

"Oh, no, she's like this most of the time," Virginia stammered, her words coming in a rush. "It doesn't bother me, though. I like the feeling, actually." She bit her lip, absently stroking her bulging abdomen and its restless resident.

"You've been saying 'she'," he noted. "Is there something you know that I don't?"

"Oh," she exclaimed, looking up, "Oh, yes, this wizard - I think my father is dating her now, but of course he wasn't then _(why am I babbling suddenly?)_ - had some kind of spell she did that said it was a girl."

"Oh," he said.

They sat in silence for a moment. She scratched the side of her neck.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked pointedly.

"No." The lie came to her lips automatically. "Well, um . . ."

He waited as she stared down at her enormous stomach.

"I just wish I knew why I was so huge," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "I know it's stupid; I know you can't tell me either. But I've had a couple of people ask me if I'm past my due date yet and I'm only six months pregnant." To her horror, she started crying._ This isn't what you're here for, Virginia!_ she mentally scolded. _And he can't do anything anyway! What is the matter with you?_

He opened the medical file he'd laid on his desk and glanced at the contents.

"I_can_ tell you that you are definitely _not_the size of a woman about to deliver," he told her. "You measured thirty-one centimeters today - that's just short of about eight months pregnant, which I know may not reassure you much, but it's still pretty far from forty. And you're at twenty-six weeks, which is actually six and a half months pregnant."

She rubbed the tears roughly from her eyes and nodded.

"Okay," she said, staring down at her midsection.

"These wizards - they can't tell you anything about this?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Just that it's a girl and a single baby, not twins or anything. And it's nothing that happens to half-wolfs, either - Wolf's aunt is a midwife and I look too big to her, too."

He tapped the desk and stared thoughtfully at a corner of his blotter. Finally, he said, "I'm not disagreeing with you, but I guess I don't understand why a wizard midwife, for instance, wouldn't be able to tell."

She looked up, astonished that the subject she needed to discuss had managed to come up all on its own.

"Because they don't have any!" she told him. "Wizards are kind of like priests, I guess. They don't have children, so they don't need midwives. Which actually is why I'm here . . ."

He smiled.

"You weren't here for your appointment?"

"Oh, well, that too," she admitted sheepishly, before going on to tell him about Queen Riding Hood and the curse.

"So, will you come?" she asked.

He'd gotten up midway through her speech and stared out the window, at what she thought was the park below, if she hadn't gotten her directions mixed up inside the building. Her question hung in the air a moment before he finally turned back to face her.

"Sure," he said, in an odd tone, as if he had no choice in the matter. "This afternoon? When I'm finished with the rest of today's patients?"

She nodded.

"Thank you," she told him.

When she left, he was staring out the window again.

* * *

The young wizard who had been assigned to guide them to Wendell's castle and back again stood up nervously when they finally stepped through the mirror and raised his hand, preparatory to casting the teleportation spell.

"Wait!" cried Virginia. "I want to . . ."

". . . talk to Wendell first," she continued lamely as they arrived in the reception hall of the Citadel.

"I'm sorry, there wasn't any time," he told her. "We may have waited too long as it is."

"Too long for what?" she asked, bewildered.

Grandmaster Roscoe entered the room, this time in a mundane walk, accompanied by her father and Samantha, who, she noted, were holding hands.

"Cas'le White is under siege," he informed them, then turned to the young man who'd been their escort. "'S all right, Brandon. Ye were charged with yer task aforehand."

Brandon nodded and bowed his head, then turned to her.

"The wizards' non-interference policy prevents us from interacting with any of the parties during war," he explained. "We bent it in the first place by sending you back, but at the time the situation was not so critical. Now, however . . ." he trailed off uncomfortably and glanced over at his superior.

"Ye'll have te wait till the siege ends te go home," Roscoe finished for him.


	14. XIII To Break a Curse

XIII - To Break a Curse

Wolf stared down at Virginia, who lay asleep on her side facing him in the dim light of the sliver of moon shining in through the tower window. Despite the virtual lack of illumination, he had no trouble at all seeing her sweet face, or watching the rise and fall of the great swell of her nearly ripe womb with her breath. As it usually did, the mere sight of her lying in his bed, gravid with his child, overwhelmed him; it was almost impossible to remember that less than a year ago, he'd still been imprisoned in the Snow White Memorial Prison, with no real hope of ever leaving. He needed to think of that, he told himself, whenever he started thinking of the Wizards' Citadel as too confining, as he'd thought of it too often in the past two or so months, ever since the siege of Wendell's castle had begun. At least here he had Virginia with him, a comfortable bed, and good food.

He looked over at the covered platters of steaming meat, fresh vegetables, and hot bread he'd gone to get for his beloved (and, well, also for himself – he couldn't very well not keep her company at the table, now could he?). Around three weeks ago, she'd no longer been able to sleep completely through the night without waking up to eat. And although she'd told him that it was perfectly fine to just bring up a snack for her midnight meal before they went to bed, he loved preparing something special for the occasion. It also gave him something to do besides think about what they'd decided his sentence for practicing magic without permission had been and – worse – how his child was going to grow up in a land ravished by war, neglect, and hate.

They were, in fact, incredibly lucky to be stuck in the Citadel for now at all, as Virginia had pointed out to him several times. Food had become quite scarce in the kingdoms; the war had essentially started right before planting season, and with no new crops sown, the prices of previous years' stores had placed even basic food out of most peoples' reach. Starvation had become common for the first time in several hundred years. And while they could have gone to live in New York, he had to admit it was probably safer for the baby to come in the kingdoms: his wife's description of what the hospital's reaction to a wolf-cub being born would probably be made him want to avoid it as much as she did. After all, they did have Doctor Oberon here with them. Considering what he'd been able to do – actually give them a look at their daughter before birth (with the assistance of the wizards, of course) – Wolf had no doubt that Virginia was completely safe with him.

He looked back over at her sleeping form, drenched in the silvery wash of the moon. _She really is huge, _he thought, envisioning his tiny daughter curled up inside his wife's bulging womb. _Succulently huge, like a ripe, juicy piece of fruit about to burst._ He smiled, remembering Virginia's reaction when the doctor had finally been able to tell them why: she'd been incredulous, and then she'd laughed until tears ran down her face. He didn't really understand why; it had made perfect sense to him: Because Virginia was not a half-wolf, her metabolism was not able to keep up with the baby's, so the placenta had grown to enormous proportions in compensation. He was, however, very glad that she stopped worrying so much (as he knew she had). Now if only he could stop worrying, himself.

Not that he was worried about Virginia or the baby. Well, not exactly. What worried him, and had ever since he'd heard his sentence pronounced, was that he might not be there when Virginia went into labor. Why this was desperately important to him he couldn't say - rationally, he told himself that plenty of people would be there to help her - people far more knowledgeable than himself (including both his auntie and the doctor), and that, while it would be preferable to share the moment with his beloved, the world would not end if he were elsewhere. Virginia had even told him she understood. None of it did any good; he knew in his heart that he simply had to be present, with a feeling nearly as strong as the one which had overpowered him when he'd first met Virginia face-to-face in her grandmother's house and had known instantly that from that moment he had to be the best person he could be.

The trouble was, he couldn't fulfill the obligation of the imposed sentence until the siege of Wendell's castle ended, and because a lengthy time was involved, they'd decided he should learn an additional spell to help him in his quest - and it was taking too long for him to master it. Virginia might still be six weeks away from delivery, but even if the siege ended tomorrow, he'd be stuck spending extra time still learning the spell. And he knew they'd expect him to begin the quest immediately, as soon as it became possible, regardless of Virginia's condition (although he granted that they'd probably make an exception and let him wait for the birth to take place if she were already in labor).

His exceedingly succulent sweetheart stirred restlessly in her sleep. He placed a hand tenderly on the curve of her tummy, feeling the even more restless struggling of his child. Virginia's eyes opened.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she whispered, laying her hand atop his and smiling wanly. "She's ready for her nightly feeding."

He smiled. "Her daddy's got the food ready," he told her.

"It'll have to wait a minute until mommy makes a little detour," she returned.

He helped her stand, then watched her waddle to the bathroom._ Another good thing about being here,_ he reminded himself. _The plumbing's very similar in appearance to what's in New York._ It occurred to him fleetingly that the New York toilets didn't magically dispose of their waste, but that wasn't a line of thought he really wanted to pursue.

"It smells delicious," she told him when she came back, as she dropped herself into a chair at their little table.

He described each dish in detail, but she didn't bother waiting for him to finish before helping herself to a little of everything. He took only a small portion of each himself, to make sure that Virginia would have as much as she needed, but as usual, she ate only what he considered a tiny bit.

"Oh, I'm stuffed," she declared.

"You hardly ate," he insisted.

"I had two helpings of corn pudding," she informed him.

"They weren't helpings, they were teaspoonfuls," he countered, continuing with the teasing banter which had become their habit at their nightly feasts.

She was silent a moment, thinking.

"You know," she finally said, "We should really try candlelight for these meals. It's dark out, the whole place is quiet and asleep . . ."

"Oh, yeah, I'll get some candles for tomorrow," he replied, trying to maintain his enthusiasm for what he sincerely thought was a very good idea, but it waned as the feeling of something going wrong overcame him again.

"What's the matter?" she asked gently. "Is it still that sentence they imposed on you?"He nodded. She didn't bother to ask any details or repeat her reassurances. They'd discussed it several times before. But he knew it was letting it consume him more and more the closer they got to the due date.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

She stood up and took his arm.

"Come here," she murmured, leading him back to bed.

They lay down and she drew him as close to her as she could and held him. He fell asleep in his wife's arms, feeling his daughter's knees and feet thumping against him.

The next morning he led Virginia down to an early breakfast. To his surprise, Grandmaster Roscoe was already present, along with his teleportation instructor. He stopped when he saw them, the dread he'd anticipated welling up within him. But when they told him the siege of Castle White had ended, he merely nodded.

Virginia was already starving, even though she'd eaten in the middle of the night, so she simply helped herself to the buffet that had been set out by the staff of apprentices, knowing Wolf understood completely why she couldn't wait for him. When she sat down, he was still deep in conversation with the two master wizards, and she bit her lip in consternation. She'd heard them say the siege had ended, and while she was glad of that for Wendell's (and New York's) sake, she knew they were talking about the quest Wolf had been dreading.

The actual task they'd set him was not really that bad, she thought as she ate, assuming that what everyone thought was true - that the Swamp Witch was really and truly dead. Samantha'd reported to everyone exactly what had taken place in the cellar of the little cottage and the general consensus had been that the old witch had been destroyed with what was probably the only weapon that could have defeated her: the truth. But there was still a lot of unfinished business for the wizards to take care of concerning her. Wolf's task was to return to the cottage in the swamp, and identify and collect all the magical artifacts the witch had possessed - chiefly her mirrors. But that was all: if he unexpectedly discovered that the Swamp Witch still lived (so to speak), the other wizards would come to his aid. It was actually quite simple, considering what his sentence might have been, but Virginia knew it wasn't what the task entailed that was bothering her husband. He was worried that the baby would come while he was gone, and no amount of reassurances she could give him about it not mattering to her (although it did) had helped.

She'd have dismissed it herself, however, as something they'd no longer care about a year from now, if he hadn't been so insistently upset. At first, she'd thought it no more than Wolf's normal over-reaction to everything in life, but for the past week, she'd begun to wonder if maybe there weren't more to it than that; that there was some reason he _had_ to be present other than just the wanting to be. Unfortunately, it had done no good to ask - he was either unwilling or unable (she suspected the latter) to give an answer.

And now the siege was over and he'd be expected to fulfill his quest as soon as he completed the training class he needed in order to transport the mirrors, and she knew it wasn't something he found easy to master. Teleporting the mirrors, he said, was identical to teleporting a living being, and took far greater care than what was necessary to move, for instance, a couple of crates from one place to another.

Her plate empty, she put down her fork and rested a hand lightly on each side of her oversized, protruding belly as she gazed down at it. The timing did seem as if it were going against them, she thought. Ostensibly she had six more weeks to go before delivery, but she thought it was quite possible, as she was now quite a bit larger than most women were at full term, that the baby might come at any time. They'd already had a little scare with it not quite three weeks before when she'd first started having to get up in the middle of the night to eat: She hadn't realized what was happening at first, and had suffered through about five early mornings of steadily worsening nausea, justifying it to herself as long-overdue morning sickness. Then, on the sixth night, she'd awakened at three a.m. with stomach cramps so bad she'd thought it was early labor and they'd called the doctor in. And although he was able to tell fairly quickly what the problem really was (he'd already gone through the process of finding out exactly why she was so huge), it had taken quite a bit of convincing from both him and Wolf to get her to swallow even a bite. Even then, the cramps were so strong she didn't dare eat more than a tiny bit (of dry cracker) at a time, and it took her the better part of three hours to finally consume enough to completely quell the pain. Ever since, she'd had to wake in the middle of the night to eat, and she'd wondered if the baby might come early if her body became unable to provide what it needed, oversized placenta or not.

Wolf sat down, setting a bowl of melon salad in front of her as he placed his own meal - of bacon, ham, and kipper - on the table. Embracing her with his now-free left hand, he gently brushed his right hand over her swollen abdomen and kissed her on the temple. Tears formed in her eyes and on impulse, she threw her arms about him and hugged him hard.

"What did they say?" she asked. "Do I have to leave?"

"Oh, no," he told her between mouthfuls. "You can stay as long as I do."

She thought he was going to say more, but he quietly applied himself to his breakfast instead. She let it go for the time being, glad at least of the reprieve which let her stay with him; the wizards had been able to answer her questions about what had gone on at Castle White - they were simply against any interference in it - so she knew, for instance, that her grandmother had returned to New York, and that Wendell had supplied the castle residents from the other side of the mirror during the siege as well.

Finally, Wolf added, "They're letting Queen Riding Hood stay, too."

"Really, no kidding?" she exclaimed, although she understood why immediately: The queen was considered necessary to breaking the curse, and if they'd sent her back to her own kingdom, which had, unsurprisingly, allied with the Fifth Kingdom and declared war on Wendell's over the wolf pardon issue, she and Rafe would be unlikely to get together again. Virginia wondered if this couldn't be considered political interference, no matter that they thought it justified, but it wasn't as if the queen's kingdom had missed its ruler much. She supposed they thought she was still off at the "cottage," awaiting the birth of her son, not languishing in a sickbed, suffering from severe depression as she actually was.

But while Virginia pitied the woman for her loss, she felt, as did everyone else, that the queen's relationship to her brother-in-law was simply a fluke. Even Wolf, who had maintained that the two must be lifemates to produce a child in the first place, thought it unlikely that his brother could ever emotionally resolve what he knew about Queen Riding Hood enough to remain sane, after at last having heard the entire tale of what had happened to Rafe's family from his aunt. In her husband's opinion, the curse had taken advantage of Rafe's emotional agony over his lifemate's identity to use him for its purposes, but while their mating was unusual, he'd remarked with sheer doggedness that if the solution to breaking the curse was their union, it still didn't answer the question of why the traveling mirrors all led to New York City. Virginia had agreed, but without much enthusiasm. She knew she was being selfish, but since hearing that breaking the curse might turn all the wolfs human, she preferred a solution which could never occur; she was too afraid Wolf would change so much he'd no longer love her, although she hadn't spoken of it to anyone, even her husband.

He finished the last of what was on his plate and turned to her.

"Yes," he said, belatedly answering her question about the queen being able to stay. "They want her to go to Wendell's with us when we leave. And they'd like you to talk to her. Today."

Wolf knew the wizards had tried to convince Queen Riding Hood to help them hopefully break the curse, but hadn't been satisfied with the results. They'd decided that Virginia might be able to succeed where they had failed. Being an expectant mother herself, they thought that she might entice the queen with the possibility of conceiving another child. Wolf, however, knew it was not that easy, and that even if she were suddenly to agree, it was unlikely in the extreme that his brother would cooperate.

Not long after they'd all arrived at the Citadel, he'd been allowed leave to go with his aunt to bury Claire's and his brother's dead baby. Millie'd thought it appropriate to bury him with Rafe's other children. The sight of the small graveyard where the two small children were buried next to their mother, within view of the small cottage Rafe had once shared with his family, made the events which had happened far more real to Wolf than the simple explanation Millie had given him earlier. And he felt it all the more when, as he dug the grave, she finally told him the complete story, as she knew it:

Rafe had heard his mate's howl for help and come running home as quickly as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. When he'd gotten there, he'd found his mate, Elie, and daughter, Melody, dead, killed by a passing Red soldier (as they were known), whom Elie had managed to kill before she died. His son Charlie lay a short distance away, unconscious, with a head injury. Rafe had focused on Charlie, as he was still alive, picking him up and running the several miles to Millie's house for help.

He'd burst in her door, she said, frantic with anxiety, the boy limp and bleeding in his arms. Rafe had barely been able to speak, and she'd had to prompt him for clearer explanations of what had happened, trying to calm him while she examined her nephew - and trying to remain calm herself for Rafe's sake. Unfortunately, she could tell fairly easily that there was nothing which could be done for Charlie, and that it would be a mistake to try; his skull had been crushed and the brain visibly damaged. And while she knew it would kill Rafe to hear such a pronouncement, she also knew it would be worse if she lied about it. Rafe, however, took the news far worse than she had expected. He'd called her a liar and accused her of siding with the queen - upon whom he said he would avenge their deaths - and wanting her nephew to die. She'd known he was overcome with grief and denial and had no idea what he was saying, but even while she tried to calm him, Charlie went into convulsions and died. Rafe had stared at his dead son, his face twisted in rage and grief, but didn't speak. After a moment, he'd gathered the boy's body gently into his arms and darted out the door the way he had come. The next day, Millie found the three graves, but no sign of Rafe. She hadn't seen him again (nor had his sisters) until the day of Wolf's wedding.

Wolf knew that if he were ever put through such a thing with Virginia and their children, that he'd want to die himself; that the only thing which would keep him alive would be the thought of taking revenge on whoever was responsible. He'd have no interest in breaking curses or anything else which might be of benefit to the living - his sole focus would be on his quarry. But he was unable to even imagine what he would feel if he found his quarry were also his lifemate. The two concepts were so opposed that he doubted he would remain sane. He knew Rafe had not.

* * *

Virginia knocked on the queen's door and waited. She wasn't at all comfortable with what the Wizards' Council wanted her to do - in fact the idea gave her butterflies, but she couldn't very well refuse to help them break the curse when so many lives were at stake, no matter if she herself wished everything could somehow remain as it had been. She just didn't see how having a woman as obviously pregnant as herself going to talk to the poor woman about having another baby would help. She thought that if she'd been in the queen's position, such a visit would only upset her (and, in fact, she had avoided the queen entirely until now just for this reason), but she hadn't been able to convince the Council of that; worse, Dr. Oberon had agreed with the Council.

There was no answer to her knock from inside the room, but the wizards had told her to expect that and to go in anyway after waiting a reasonable time. Steeling herself, she turned the knob and opened the door.

The queen lay in her bed, her long, somewhat tangled blonde hair scattered across the pillows which partially propped her up, her face turned to the window. Pale grey light from the overcast day streamed in, illuminating the coverlet and the side of her face that Virginia could see.

Virginia cleared her throat.

"Hello," she began somewhat quietly. Getting no reaction, she forced herself to talk a bit louder. "I'm Virginia; they asked me to come talk to you ..."

Still, the queen did not stir. Virginia bit her lip and walked over to the bed. At close range she was shocked to see how thin Queen Riding Hood had become. The bones of her face stood out prominently, her pale and now somewhat sallow skin making her watery, swollen, red-rimmed eyes huge. She wasn't crying at the moment, but it was evident that she had been recently and probably would be again soon. But still, she gazed out the window at the grey, cloudy sky and didn't look at Virginia at all.

Taking a deep breath, Virginia walked around the bed and deliberately placed herself in the queen's line of vision.

"Hello," she said again, "I'm Virginia, and they've asked me . . ."

"Yes, I heard you," the queen whispered numbly. Her eyes met Virginia's, directly in her line of sight from the window, then dropped to her obvious pregnancy and stayed there.

"Okay," said Virginia, wondering what she was supposed to actually say next. She stood uncomfortably as Queen Riding Hood resumed staring listlessly past her. _Oh, I knew this was a bad idea,_ she thought._ What am I supposed to say, anyway? Come on to the Fourth Kingdom and have another baby? What if she doesn't even want anything to do with Rafe? Or, what if she does - do I tell her he's locked up in a dungeon cell, probably insane?_ She sighed.

The queen seemed to hear Virginia sigh and looked back over at her belly. After a moment, she said, still whispering, "You're big."

"Oh," exclaimed Virginia, not really expecting such a comment after all the silence. "Yes, well, um . . . Yes, I am. It's because the baby is a half-wolf and I'm not, so they tell me." She wasn't worried about mentioning the half-wolfs in front of the her; it had been obvious by her previous reaction to the Council's telling her that her kingdom was at war that she no longer agreed with their prosecution. In fact, the only thing Virginia had been asked not to mention was the war - it had taken a long time for them to calm the queen after she'd heard about it.

"Oh," was all the queen said, her eyes returning to study the edge of the window. But Virginia saw her left hand stray to her own flat stomach.

"I, um . . . I know the wizards have talked to you about going to Wendell's castle," she continued, intending to get her pitch in and over with, but she was interrupted again by a question from Queen Riding Hood.

"Does it move?" she asked. "Can you feel it?"

"Well, yes," said Virginia, surprised again. Then, on an impulse, she said, "Would you like to feel her kick me?"

Getting no answer, she picked up the queen's hand, and when the woman didn't pull it away, pressed it to the side of her abdomen, where the baby was jabbing her most noticeably at the moment. Some emotion Virginia couldn't identify flickered momentarily on the queen's face.

"It's alive," she murmured tonelessly.

"Yes, very," Virginia assured her.

Queen Riding Hood's hand dropped and she looked away, her reddened eyes filling with tears. Virginia felt immediately guilty.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have . . ."

"He's there," the queen said.

"What?" asked Virginia, confused by the sudden change of subject. "Who?"

"They said he was at Wendell's . . . that the curse had gotten him . . . that he was a prisoner in the dungeon." Tears tracked down her face unheeded as she spoke, staring intently past Virginia's side at the window frame.

"Oh, yes, Rafe. Yes, he's there." Virginia had no idea what she could say after that..

After a moment the queen said, "They want me to go there."

"Yes."

The queen looked down at her lap silently for several moments.

At last she said, "I will."

* * *

A little more than three weeks later, Wolf found himself running towards the Deadly Swamp as fast as he could. He knew he'd have to slow down once he got there, so every moment he could save before then was doubly important to him. His instructor had finally been satisfied that he could teleport the mirrors - if he concentrated hard enough on the process - and even though he himself felt he could be better at it (especially if they let him wait until after Virginia had the baby), the pressure from the Wizard population for him to get on with his punishment had forced him to leave.

Not that he had left by himself - Virginia had come back to Wendell's with him, as had her father, Samantha, Dr. Oberon, and Queen Riding Hood. Samantha, he knew, had been under as much pressure from the Wizard Council as he was, probably more; they did not approve of her attachment to Tony - he was too close to Wendell, and they felt she would be too politically influenced. Wolf hadn't waited around to see what everyone else was doing, however, just given Virginia a quick kiss goodbye and run out the door.

He tried to tell himself he shouldn't be so concerned about possibly not being there when his cub was born, but it did no good - he was worried, and although he knew that worry was sort of a natural state for him, he was a lot more worried than he thought he should have been. It was silly, he knew - Dr. Oberon was there with Virginia, as was his Aunt Millie, who had returned from the Second Kingdom, where she'd gone to be with his sister Deirdre after the burial. The wizards had at least allowed that much - they'd provided transportation back for her specifically so she could stay with Virginia while Wolf was gone. And while this didn't stop him from _wanting_ to be there, what he felt went beyond that somehow.

He stopped suddenly and sniffed the air. The odor of unwashed bodies came to him on the wind, too strongly for it to be a single person, or just a family. Warily, he cocked his head and listened. Far off, he heard horses neighing and the faint background rumble of many voices. The army that had besieged Wendell hadn't left after all, he realized. They'd simply pulled back, waiting. For what, he didn't know, but there was really nothing he could do about it except hurry with what he had to do and get back to Virginia as quickly as he could.

* * *

Although he had known King Wendell's castle had been besieged, Dr. Oberon was shocked by how different everything looked when he at last returned from the Wizards' Tower. Plaster dust still lay thickly on everything and guards standing at stiff attention stood in virtually every room and corridor. Paintings had been removed from the walls and the carpets rolled up and stored away. Wendell himself, contrary to his custom, did not come to greet them all but sent an attendant back with a message of welcome, conveying his apologies and explaining that there was still a tremendous amount to be done to restore order to his kingdom.

The thin woman beside him, although the queen of a kingdom herself and no doubt used to being greeted with pomp, seemed more relieved than anything at King Wendell's absence. Tom remembered that her kingdom had declared war on Wendell's, and even though it had been without her leave, he thought he understood her reasons. His thoughts, however, were not so much on the queen as they were on the woman beside Virginia, who had been introduced to him simply as "Wolf's aunt".

She was a striking woman, he thought, but that wasn't the reason for his interest. Although he presumed that she must also be a werewolf, she had a kind of manner in speaking to others he'd previously seen nowhere except among the abused. This, combined with her obvious limp, had caused him to imagine all sorts of past histories for her, the most fanciful being that she had been hurt repeatedly by a member of her own kind (an uncle of Wolf's?) during full moon frenzies. That also made Tom wonder anew what the ramifications would be to Virginia when the full moons started affecting Wolf again. Was she in danger of ending up the same way?

"I'd like to see him at once," the queen stated quietly, interrupting his thoughts about Wolf's aunt.

Everyone knew who she meant. No one tried to talk her out of it, but, as Tom looked at them, all except the aunt seemed bothered by her statement. She came forward, a bit hesitantly even for her, he thought, and deprecatingly asked the queen to please follow her. He and Virginia had followed the two women halfway down the stairs to the dungeon before it occurred to him that the aunt's attitude around the queen could easily be explained by her being one of the queen's subjects. Lost in thought, wondering if something this simple could account for all of her distant behavior, he passed the turnoff to where the mirror was kept, now flanked by a pair of guards, and suddenly brought up short.

He had completely forgotten about how long he'd been away from his office in New York. True, he'd notified his associates that he'd be gone for an indefinite length of time, but he'd never realized it would be months. And while it was true that he'd thought of New York - occasionally - in terms of what might happen should Wendell's castle fall and the mirror be discovered, he wondered if he should be surprised at how little it mattered to him that he'd been gone for so long. Somehow, the events happening on _this_ side of the mirror seemed more real to him than his life in New York of work and emptiness.

Here, as he neared Rafe's cell, he realized he wasn't the only one who was empty, although he thought the old saying 'misery loves company' not the sentiment he was looking for. He'd heard - as had everyone who'd returned to the Fourth Kingdom - what had happened to Rafe's family two years ago. In certain respects it was much like his own story, only worse - at least Tom hadn't had any children to lose. He felt vaguely guilty for how he'd thought of Rafe before - as a rather common criminal. But this time, as they turned the corner and the man came into view, he recognized too well what Rafe was feeling. He'd been there himself and still was. The only difference between them was the false decorum Tom had adapted to placate others. In his soul, he and Rafe were one.

Wolf's brother sat on the cot in his cell, his bony knees hugged to his chest, and stared at a point somewhere in the air in front of him. His dark hair was matted and filthy, as were his clothes. An odor of sweat and human waste emanated from the cell; looking closer, Tom could see the bucket he used for excretion, which, in his apathy, he no doubt left alone until it was full. No servant would venture in to get it, he knew, and would wait until he set it within reach before emptying it.

The woman beside him stiffened at the sight of him and stopped, her hand flying to her breast. Tom knew, from listening to her raving while she was delirious with fever after they'd first found her, that she blamed herself for his family's death. He also knew that she loved him desperately. It was this, more than the (in his opinion) not too well thought out method for breaking the curse that had caused him to agree that she should see him as soon as possible. _Knowing_ would be better for her than the torture she was putting herself through in her imagination, or so he thought. He admitted, however, that he had no real idea how Rafe (who, by certain things Wolf had said, he believed returned the queen's feelings - or at least he would have, had circumstances been different) would react to seeing her. Would he blame her as well? Tom was uncertain himself about how he'd feel if he found himself in love with someone he later discovered had been instrumental in Julie's death. He doubted Rafe himself knew.

Queen Riding Hood squared her shoulders and stepped forward, her hesitation lasting only seconds. For the first time since Tom had known her he thought she looked like a queen, tall and dignified. Silently, Wolf's aunt motioned for the guard to unlock the cell door. As she entered, alone, Rafe remained in his place on the cot, not looking up, or even seeming to acknowledge that any of them were there, unmoving. Then the lock clanged shut behind her, and he sprang.

Virginia shrieked in Tom's ear as Rafe's lunge brought the queen to the floor with a snarl, his eyes wild. Her head hit the stones with a thud, but she barely flinched at the pain and didn't look away, just stared up at him, unresisting, as a shudder passed through his body. Then, as if he were suddenly unsure of what he was doing, he stopped, though he didn't let her go. For a moment, neither of them moved, then the queen began to struggle, ripping at his filthy clothing.

"Kill me!" she ordered him, "Go ahead, kill me! You should! I deserve it, I . . ." Her cries dissolved into wailing sobs, punctuated with screams of "Kill me!" as she struggled harder, hitting him and scratching him with her nails.

In front of Tom, Wolf's aunt reached for the latch to the cell door. Without thinking, he pulled her back, getting another shock as she recoiled from his touch so violently her shoulder banged into the iron doorframe. He had no time to dwell on this, however. Rafe had fought to collect his assailant's flailing arms, and holding her by the wrists, he shook her violently, screaming "Stop it!" over her cries. Tom heard Virginia murmur "Oh my God"; saw the aunt covet the latch, her features twisted with compassion, though she didn't touch it - he'd moved himself close enough to it that she'd have to brush him to reach it, though he couldn't have said why it was important to him that she not interrupt the scene within the cell. In fact, he was just about to give in and let her pass when Rafe shrieked "NO!," his voice breaking on the word as he dissolved into sobs himself and gathered the now weakly protesting queen into his arms, her entreaties of "Kill me," now mere murmurs, repeated over and over as if in ritual, to receive his response, also repeated, whispered and rough, "No."

They had still been sitting on the floor in that same position when Tom and Virginia had returned to the main floor of the castle, leaving Rafe's aunt to - finally - care for them.

"Did you know?" Virginia asked suddenly.

He looked up.

"Know what?"

"Know what would happen," she explained. "You stopped Mi... Wolf's aunt from going in there."

"Oh. Well, I . . . Maybe. I think . . . no, I don't know," he faltered..

Virginia regarded him with astonishment.

"I wouldn't really have forced her to stay out if she'd insisted," he hedged.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, obviously not fooled by his change of subject. "Uh huh," she said dubiously.

"Why did she . . . recoil like that?" he asked. "She didn't just jump because I startled her. And it can't be some social stricture the wolfs have about touching others, since she had no problem touching either you or Queen Riding Hood. The only time I've ever seen a woman react that way was when she'd been abused."

"No," sighed his patient, "She wasn't abused, not in the way you think."

She surveyed him as if weighing whether or not he could be trusted with her information, causing him to recall the time, not too long before, when he'd seen nothing except that look from her. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, "What happened was that she and her husband were attacked by some idiot wolf-haters. I'm not sure of the exact details, but it ended with him dead and her just barely alive. She's apparently been like that ever since. I know I've never seen her really happy. Even when she smiles, it never reaches her eyes."

He'd stopped, surprised by her answer, although it apparently wasn't obvious to her; she'd gone on ahead by herself to wherever she'd been headed. But he was still thinking about it that night as he went to bed. As much as he'd have liked to blame her attackers or society or anything else, he'd never been able to get over blaming himself for Julie's death. He thought he'd been able to identify with Rafe and the queen so strongly because he'd been able to see both their sides, and knowing them, had applied them to himself. Yet he'd seen Rafe – at least in some fashion – come to terms with such knowledge, and now Virginia had revealed that his aunt had been through an experience virtually identical to Julie's – and it had made no difference that her husband had been present, or that he'd possessed abilities Tom had been sure should have made him invincible – in fact, far from saving her, by dying in the attack he'd ensured that she'd have a life of loneliness. Was that what he'd have wanted for Julie? Certainly she was no half-wolf and might get over his loss sooner, but supposing she could not? Wouldn't she be living much as he was now, feeling somewhat responsible for his death (for after all, if he hadn't been there when she was attacked, he'd be perfectly safe as he was now)? He couldn't help feeling slightly guilty for entertaining such possibilities; they seemed to smell vaguely of sophistry, as if he were reasoning with a circular argument. But it genuinely had never occurred to him to even think of how Julie would feel if he'd succeeded in saving her at the cost of his own life. Would that be any better, for her to live in the hell in which he was now trapped? Unable to resolve the problem to his satisfaction, Tom fell asleep still thinking about it.

* * *

Virginia awoke, startled at first to be in bed alone, until she remembered – again – where Wolf had gone. She sighed, feeling the baby, ever restless, fumbling against her side, and wondered, not for the first time, if she would ever get any sleep once it was born. Even now she had to interrupt every night just to get up and feed her.

She sighed again and heaved herself into a sitting position on the bed, the vaguely queasy feeling she'd come to associate with extreme hunger threatening to overtake her.

_Didn't I already get up and eat, though?_ she wondered, reaching for her robe. _Or did I dream that? Not that I'd be surprised if you started wanting to eat twice a night now …_

She padded downstairs to the kitchens in the dim light of minimal candles. Although servants kept the palace lit to prevent accidents in the night, the recent siege meant the lighting was only of the dimmest and most necessary sort (as at stairways and intersections), and that blackout curtains were drawn in every window. But once in the kitchen, Virginia found that the nightly snack she'd prepared for herself before going to bed was already gone.

"I did eat already," she said to no one in particular. Her queasiness seemed to step up a notch with the declaration. "Okay, okay, I'll eat again. Geez, do you have to be _this_ much like your dad?"

Wanting to hurry and get back to bed, she chose some handy fruit – strawberries, grapes, and two bananas - _Where did Wendell get those? Oh, I forgot, he's shopping in New York now_ – and ate quickly. Halfway back upstairs, however, she decided that had been a really bad idea. What had started as a slight queasiness before she'd eaten had suddenly blossomed into downright nausea. With one hand on the banister, she slid the other into the crease between her breasts and the baby in a vain attempt to hold her protesting stomach. She felt overheated, as if the air were closing in around her. _Maybe if I go for a walk outside,_ she thought.

The slight breeze that wafted through the gardens helped some, but Virginia discovered quickly that she felt best if she kept walking, so she lifted the latch to the inner gate and continued on out to the formal grounds. It was a dark night; no moon lit the walkways, though with their surfaces of white gravel they remained visible as ghostly trails. In a way, she was glad not to see the rest of the outer garden – it had been trampled heavily by the invading army and still lay in shambles; she'd seen it in the daylight earlier. As it was, at night she could imagine it the way it had been. By now, the lilacs would have been finished and the roses started blooming. Not that she dwelled on the subject overly much; it only served to remind her of the sleep she was missing.

_Why did I have to eat so fast?_ she demanded of herself. _To hurry and get back to bed? Right, that's a laugh. What's the matter with me anyway? I knew I was queasy when I got up. When did I start eating to solve a problem? A year ago I'd never have eaten if I felt like that. And I said __**you**__ were like your dad. __**I'm**__ the one who's turning into him!_ She tried not to think of how Wolf was not there and how much she wanted him to be, knowing it was useless to be angry that he was absent right when she was obviously getting sick, but a tear escaped her anyway. On a practical level, however, she wished she would just hurry up and toss her cookies so she could get back to bed.

It didn't take her long to realize that she was about to get her last wish. Breaking into a cold sweat, she veered suddenly off the white pathway, inanely not wanting to make a mess there despite the ruined state of the garden. She'd just reached the relative cover of some still-standing hedges when she finally lost the offending meal, and was still standing there shaking, trying to decide if she really felt any better, when rough hands seized her from behind.

* * *

The nearly overpowering stench of mildew and rot made Wolf want to retch as he eased open the door to the Swamp Witch's cellar. It had been bad enough upstairs in the close air of the little cottage; the odor of what lay beneath made what had been a psychological attack - the dread of what he might meet - into a physical one as well. With one hand rubbing the irritation from his now-watering eyes, he gritted his teeth and forced the door open all the way.

Rickety wooden stairs led down into darkness. He stood for awhile on the threshold, altering his eyes to their more light sensitive wolf mode and allowing them to adjust to the dimness. After a moment, he could make out the earthen floor below. Cautiously, he started down, testing the strength of the treads as he went.

At the bottom, a vague mist hovered near the floor, not thick enough to obscure the ground beneath it, but substantial enough to leave a film of condensation on his boots. An indeterminate background of static magic made his hackles rise, but he forced himself to stay calm and analyze it. After a few moments, he realized it was coming not from the mist, nor the now-empty bier which stood moldering in the center of the room, but from the many mirrors arranged around the room's perimeter. His eyes grew huge and round as he stared at them, their clear and unfogged glasses, here in this humid atmosphere, hinting at their nature even to those who could not feel the magic's presence.

"So many!" he exclaimed softly, distraught at the thought of the overwhelming task he faced. _A few mirrors!_ he thought, mentally repeating what he'd been told. _There have to be at least fifty!_

"Ooohhh," he moaned to himself. "I'm never going to get finished – well, not in time, anyway – my cub will be going to school by the time I finish here . . . well, of course she won't be going to school yet; it won't take _that_ much time, but . . ." He scratched his head fitfully, staring at the mirrors as if they were a jury ready to convict him. "I _have_ to be back in time for the baby to be born," he explained to them reasonably, as if they had inquired about it. Suddenly realizing that some might actually be capable of genuinely questioning him, he tried to look away, but succeeded only in seeing his reflection multiplied tens of times in the frames behind him. Two cast his image back subtly altered, though he couldn't have said exactly what had been changed, only that the results sent goosebumps down his spine.

His eyes snapped to the packed earth of the floor, studying the tips of his sodden boots. It was safe to look there . . . wasn't it, he wondered? Realizing he had started to hyperventilate, he tried to calm himself by chanting "The Swamp Witch is not here; the Swamp Witch is not here," since she obviously wasn't – her brand of magic was quite distinctive in . . . oh, he couldn't call it a smell or a feeling; it wasn't really like that at all, but well, it was distinctive. And not here. But the mirrors, though not evil, had been used for evil purposes, he couldn't help but think. Was there some miasma of residue . . . ?

"NO! Stop it!" he told himself out loud. "You're here; just do what you came here for. Move the mirrors, then you can leave."

A trickle of sweat ran into his eye and he wiped it absently away.

"Right!" he declared, looking up.

The mirror across from him, framed in an intricate network of carved vines, showed him his own sweat-soaked visage, and oddly, also the vapor condensing from his mouth as he spoke. Hadn't the room been cool – as a cellar would be – when he'd entered it, he thought? Humid, yes, but not hot. It had grown warmer as he'd stood there, though, until now it felt like a steaming jungle to him. He panted in the heat, dragging a hand across his burning forehead and the puffs of his breath ballooned before him.

_It shouldn't do that,_ he thought. _I could see my breath when I came in, but it was cool in here then. I shouldn't see it now._

"Never mind," he told himself sternly, "It doesn't matter. Just hurry up and move the mirrors so you can leave!"

Nevertheless, he didn't move; just stood there absently staring at the mirrors in front of him. _Where to start?_ he wondered. _With something simple; one that wasn't as powerful or dangerous as the others might be . . . but which one was that?_ He frowned worriedly. _I should know, I should know that . . ._ but it was no use. He just couldn't think.

"No!" he barked in exasperation. "I can't think. How could I think in here; it's so hot, my clothes are sticking to me, I've got a kink in my tail . . ."

Well, that was something he could do something about, he decided. After all, who was going to see him here in the Swamp Witch's cellar? He reached down into the back of his pants and dragged the offending appendage free, sighing in relief for a moment before the awful realization hit him: His tail was much, much longer than it had been when he'd left Wendell's palace.

"What the . . . but it's not . . ." He thought for a moment. _No, it isn't full moon._ He'd made sure of that not too long before they'd left the Citadel. Not even the most militant wizards would have expected him to fulfill his mission in that condition. But not only wasn't the moon full, she was waning, and barely a sliver of her was left in the sky. Why then would the fever have come upon him, why would his cycle suddenly change so dramatically, he wondered? Then, with sudden clarity, he knew. Virginia was in labor.

* * *

Labor was, however, the farthest thing from Virginia's mind at the moment. She was curled up - as far as was possible - on the muddy ground of a small stockade, crying as quietly as she could so as to not attract attention. All around her, aside from an occasional guard, slept an army - one that hadn't left the Fourth Kingdom despite what the Wizards' Council had said. She had no idea what country it represented and didn't care.

The band of scouts had taken her, bodily, from the garden of Wendell's castle, and she hadn't been able to do a thing: as when Rafe had kidnapped her, she had been unwilling to put up too much of a fight for fear the baby might be hurt. As it was, the leader had backhanded her across the face – her eye was swollen already – because she had thrown up on him. Thinking about it now gave her a small amount of pleasure – it wasn't something she'd have been able to manage had she planned it, but she thought he really did deserve it just for being so stupid; surely he must have known she was sick before he'd captured her!

Her tears returned quickly as she thought about her predicament, wishing for the thousandth time that Wolf were there; wishing he had at least been at the castle to notice she was gone, but instead he was away on that business for the wizards. She could hope for no rescue this time; she'd have to rescue herself somehow. The trouble was, she had no idea how to accomplish such a thing: she was locked in the stockade, a small, muddy pit with high straight walls of pointed wooden poles. If she weren't pregnant, she might try climbing them . . . but then, if she weren't pregnant, she might have tried a lot of things to keep them from taking her.

She shifted position, grimacing as she soaked up yet more of the mud. _What a stupid thing to worry about, _she scolded herself, cried harder, tried to stifle the noise it made with her hand, and ended up smearing her face with the slimy stuff. She was just about to choke with self-pity when she saw, through the crack between the poles of the stockade fence, the captain who had captured her talking to a young guard. In the still darkness of the early morning, she could just make out the iridescent blue of fairy wings behind him. Forcing herself to remain quiet and still, not easy with her body aching from the capture and her illness, and insisting she change position every ten minutes or so (at least, she thought, her nausea had finally abated), she strained to hear what they were saying.

"You keep an eye on her," ordered the captain. "And make sure she stays quiet. She's our ticket to getting in that castle!"

"Yes, sir."

"Just remember, keep her quiet," he emphasized. "She makes one peep, you make sure she _can't_ make another, is that clear?"

After a split second's hesitation, the young guard replied, "Yes, sir."

"You got a problem?" demanded the captain belligerently.

"I just thought that . . ."

"You aren't supposed to think, soldier! You follow orders!"

"Yes, sir."

"And don't worry. She ain't gonna be around long enough to need any of our food supply," he chortled. "What there is of it anyway."

Eyes wide with disbelief, Virginia watched him walk away.

He'd been out of her line of vision for only a few moments when she realized she was shaking violently. She couldn't think. What could she do? Not just let them kill her, but how could she stop them? There was no way, no way at all, nothing . . .

She began to sob in little gulping spasms that quickly turned into a frenzied gasping for air; all she could see a blur in front of her. The baby kicked her hard. She put her hand to the spot and cried harder, kneeling in the cold mud. _Where is Wolf? I want him here, please . . . please, please, please . . ._

"Please . . ." she moaned, "please . . ." and burst out crying, loudly.

The gate to her private stockade was abruptly thrown open, hitting the timbers behind it with a loud clatter of wood striking wood.

"Be quiet!" shouted a youthful male voice, still too high pitched to sound really authoritative. Virginia looked up at him, but could see only a blurry shape in the dark, holding a bright lantern. "Quiet, you, or I'll . . ." He turned the lantern and shone the beam upon her, whatever he would have done lost as his eyes fell upon her.

She wanted to say, "Or what, you'll kill me? You're going to do it anyway!" but no longer cared enough to bother. It wouldn't get her out; why waste the energy, she thought, sinking down farther into the mud, still sobbing fitfully.

* * *

The guard stared at the young woman groveling in the mud in front of him, pregnant almost to bursting, he thought. She didn't look like a threat; he'd been told earlier that they'd captured a major member of the pro-wolf faction. He didn't know what he'd expected - a half-wolf, maybe, or at least someone who looked wicked, as if they took some perverse pleasure from setting the wolfs on the respectable population of the kingdoms. Not this – not someone who reminded him all too well of his young aunt, whose unborn child would now never see its father. It had been his loss, in a battle of this foul war, as well as the loss of his older brother (the act which had precipitated his kingdom's march on the Fourth), that had spurred him to join the cause. His father already gone to lead the Eighth's army, he - Reginald, second son of Gregor, had left home despite his mother's protestations that he was too young and should stay in any case to protect the succession.

The battalion he'd found - away from his father's command (he knew his father would likely send him home as well) - must have known his identity; there just were not all that many blue fairies except those in the hybrid royal house, but they had gone along with the deceit he had invented to explain himself. He'd been ready for blood - to give those wolf-lovers what they deserved; what they were obviously asking for! - he'd been ready for anything . . . anything except this.

What possible reason could his commander have for killing a pregnant woman? So their rations wouldn't be stretched to feed yet another mouth (or two), he understood, but if she were to be held for ransom, as he'd been given to understand, why not let her go upon its fulfillment? Was she that much of a danger?

A small thought crept into his mind that she might be capable of practicing some magic to deceive him . . . even now, she might be influencing him in a bid to escape! Quickly, he averted his eyes from hers lest he be caught in the hypnotic spell, and backed up to slam the gate closed, then realized he hadn't yet gotten her quiet.

"Be qui . . ." he began, then realized it did little good to simply say the words. Captain Barston had given him orders to beat her into submission if necessary, but, seeing her, he doubted he'd be able to go through with it. Unless, of course, she was really trying to magically influence him; unless she was as evil as she'd have to be for them to want to kill her – then he could flog her until she lost consciousness, he thought, take revenge for his brother and uncle! But not unless he were absolutely sure – he could never look at her and do it unless he were sure.

_Why?_ he argued with himself._ Of course she must be a witch the enemy is using – why else order her death? Why claim her as a major member of the opposition? I should just beat her – beat her until she screams and bleeds and the baby dies in a bloody hemorrhage!_

"No," he whispered. _No, what am I saying? I don't have to guess, I can . . . but why should I bother when she's obviously the enemy or she wouldn't be here? Why waste time? Barston will hear her and come back and wonder why I didn't do my job; just slap her until she shuts up! Now! It'll take too long to do . . . No, just . . ._

He made the gesture with his hand – an old one his mother had taught him as soon as he'd reached the age of reason, a simple fairy spell she'd said would be invaluable for a member of the royal family: a way to tell if someone were ensorcelling you, bending your will to theirs. With a snap of the wrist, he let it go, glancing furtively up at her eyes, the finger sign of warding ready.

He didn't need it. The woman stared at him through swollen blue eyes, frightened and guileless. Confused, he stared back, not even realizing his mouth was open until she spoke.

"Please let me go," she whispered breathlessly, little hesitating hitches between her words from sobs that hadn't completely ended. "Please . . ." There was no magic in the entreaty.

Oddly, in his head, he heard an argument telling him his mother's magic was useless and that he needed to kill the woman in front of him immediately or have his side face dire consequences in the war, but he pushed it away, knowing it was false, realizing then that he'd gotten it wrong, that the thoughts he'd had about saving the woman's life were his own thoughts and the others were false, not the other way around as he'd been led to believe. Frightened, both because of the power it would take to exert such influence on someone from afar, and by the sudden uncomfortable idea that the influence might extend farther than just over himself. It wasn't something he really wanted to think about, though, so he pushed that away too, and just focused on the woman.

"Please," she croaked softly, "Please don't kill me . . ."

_Of course she'd heard that,_ he realized.

"No, shhh!" he said, realized it wasn't much different from everything he'd said to her before, and knelt down to face her. "Shhh! Can you walk?" he whispered.

She blinked, looking at him incredulously, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. He swallowed, himself, realizing only then what he intended to do and that it meant not only desertion, but treason. Or did it, he wondered? What was really going on? Were they in fact all being led? If so, wouldn't justice be his duty? He was risking a lot, true . . . his title, his position, his freedom . . . possibly his life. What if he were wrong?

_No, that's that other voice!_

Abruptly, he made his decision. "Let's go! Shhh!" he told her as he took her by the arm to help her stand. She stumbled for a moment, unsteady in the trampled mud and her own ungainly body. Her pregnancy was a lot farther along than he'd at first noticed, and he wondered if she could make it to where they had to go. He knew she'd try though; she'd have to – to stay here meant her death, and she knew it. With his finger to his lips, he led to the gate, and finding the way clear, closed it behind them.

* * *

Virginia followed her captor out of the stockade, still unable to keep from shaking. His hesitation when he'd seen her and the few murmured words he'd let slip as he considered his course of action giving her hope that he truly meant to set her free, but she couldn't be sure. It was possible he was only leading her to a punishment . . . or to her death - _No! Don't think it! You'll start crying again, and you can't afford to make any noise out here! At least you're out of the stockade, which is better than inside it!_ She hoped that was true, anyway.

Still, she thought, the fact that the young guard had insisted she remain quiet coupled with his own noiseless progression continued to give her hope. When he set the lantern down at his post and began to walk away, gesturing for her to follow, she was almost certain he intended to lead her to freedom.

They threaded their way through the semidarkness of the camp, passing murky blank shapes she supposed were tents, zigzagging between them to better avoid the dim lanterns set out at the guardposts. Fortunately, the lanterns were shaded so that the enemy – Wendell's army, she realized – would not be able to detect them at a distance. They were barely visible here, used mainly as the guard had used his to observe her, with a panel that opened on one side, the way she might use a flashlight. Eventually they reached the edge of the camp and stepped out into the forest; a change she could not so much see as feel: The air grew at once cooler and more still, and the ground upon which she walked became littered with dead leaves and twigs instead of the heavily trampled earth. She stopped, cringing, as something snapped under her foot.

The fairy whirled at the sound and stood for a moment, listening to the darkness. Satisfied, he straightened up and she saw his hands form a slight gesture before he pointed at her feet. _Fairy magic,_ she thought apprehensively, recalling the way the three sprite-like fairies in the Deadly Swamp had mischievously separated her from her father. The boy . . . man . . . teenager? who now led her was the only fairy she'd seen at the camp (though admittedly she'd seen only the four who had caught her plus this one). What if he . . ._Stop it! Just . . . stop it! Quit thinking about it, just go! _

When she did take a step she was surprised to find she could no longer feel the forest floor beneath her feet but instead felt as if she were walking across a thickly carpeted room. It made no sound whatsoever and she suspiciously wondered if her feet were even touching the ground at all, though she kept going as fast as she reasonably could to put distance between herself and the camp, slowing only when she felt a cramp in her left side and beneath her belly.

It wasn't the first time it had happened, and she pressed the light button on her watch, peering at it anxiously before letting her breath out. _No problem,_ she thought when she saw it'd been a little over fifteen minutes since the last one, which had been eleven minutes fourteen seconds after the first. _It can't be labor, they're getting farther apart, not closer. Must be that false labor whatever-it's-called or just gas from whatever made me sick before - that's what it really feels like. Oh, well, it's better than throwing up._ Nevertheless, when it happened four more times in the next hour, though nothing so painful that she couldn't keep walking and in no real intervals she could set her watch by (which she'd imagined labor pains should be like), she began to worry just a bit, though she knew she was probably being silly about it. She still had another two weeks to go before her delivery date, after all, and these gas pains were nothing like labor . . . were they?

With the break of dawn, however, she suddenly forgot about trying to count minutes and seconds when she saw, far in the distance, across the mist-shrouded valley before her, the high, weather-scarred peaks of Dragon Mountain. She had something more solid to worry about now: they had come out on the wrong side of the army camp from Wendell's castle and were now well on their way to the Ninth Kingdom.

"We're going the wrong way!" she blurted out.

Her youthful benefactor regarded her with an air of assumed worldliness and patiently explained that no, they were going in exactly the right direction if they didn't want to be followed and captured: The army would assume that she'd head back for the Fourth Kingdom's capital, and the soldiers could go much faster than (he implied) she could in her condition.

Pursuit was not something she'd really thought about once they'd gotten clear of the camp without anyone raising the alarm, but he was right, they were bound to notice she was gone sooner or later, and if they had to guess in which direction, they'd be sure to choose the one back to the castle from where they'd taken her. Only . . .

"But why would they guess we'd gone that way?" she asked, starting to panic. "Wouldn't they just follow our trail and know which way we went?"

The boy smiled devilishly.

"We didn't leave a trail," he said smugly, wiggling his fingers suggestively.

"You used magic?" she asked.

"Fairy magic," he told her. "Not detectable. Not by them, anyway."

"Dogs can't even follow it?"

"They don't have dogs," he assured her. It didn't escape her notice that his reply did not answer her question.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." He sounded exactly like a teenager that had been asked one too many questions by a parent. "Dogs have to be fed. There isn't enough."

"Not enough food?" she asked. _When did this happen?_ she wondered.

"No, not enough food," he repeated as if she were a bit slow.

They walked in silence a few moments, picking their way down the gradual slope towards the valley.

"Of course, it doesn't mean that once they don't find us in that direction that they won't look this way anyway," he ventured.

_Great,_she thought, and tried to pick up her pace a bit.

By noon she'd learned he was Gwendolyn's brother - he'd asked her if his sister was being humanely treated as a prisoner, and she could tell he hadn't really believed her reply that Gwen was staying at the Wizards' Citadel by her own choice so as to stay out of the war (the wizards had convinced her that nothing she could do or say to her parents would be able to break through the effect of the curse). But although Virginia could tell from some things Reginald let slip that he suspected some sort of magical influence might be creating the reasons for the war - for which she was grateful, as he'd told her, when she'd asked, that this was the reason he'd let her go - she'd also been able to tell that he had no love for wolfs.

"A wolf killed my brother," he'd told her simply, if irrationally, since Queen Riding Hood III had described exactly how she'd found Gunther frozen beneath the ice. And when Virginia had tried to correct him, he'd acknowledged that the queen might have found his remains that way, but that nevertheless, the death blow had 'obviously' been struck by a wolf. 'Obviously', he'd said, because Gunther had been on a crusade to eradicate all the wolfs; therefore only a wolf would have the motivation to kill him. When she'd pointed out that his death could have been accidental, he brushed off the suggestion as extremely unlikely: His brother was an excellent horseman and outdoorsman – accidents didn't happen to him.

Ordinarily, Virginia would have sighed and patiently continued trying to chip away at his resistance - after all, she reasoned, he'd been able to see through the curse well enough to let her go; he might eventually be able to see through this part of it too - but by noon she'd come to realize that time was not going to be on her side. By then her contractions - she could no longer think of them as anything else - had narrowed to six or seven minutes apart; still not as exact as clockwork, since they varied by as much as twenty seconds either way, but strong enough - and steady enough - she knew they had to be the real thing. Still, she said nothing to Reginald about them, figuring it would do little except further burden him. He'd find out soon enough, she thought, wondering for the first time in a long time if the baby would look very wolflike at birth and how her wolf-hating companion would react if it did. _Oh, Wolf,_ she thought, _is this what you meant by 'knowing' you had to be here when the baby came? Did you foresee all this happening?_ She knew she shouldn't be thinking about him; it just made her cry, but she couldn't help it. Stifling a sob, she brushed away a tear that escaped as she thought, _It's too late now, though . . ._

Surprisingly, she made it to late afternoon before finally giving herself away. They'd gotten as far as the base of Dragon Mountain where Reginald had called a rest. Along the way, she'd been able to disguise the occasional gasps she'd let out when the strongest contractions had hit her as panting exertion from the exercise of constant walking. Now, however, she had no such excuse.

"What's the matter?" he'd innocently asked her.

As calmly as possible, she told him she thought she might be in labor, then steeled herself for his reaction. He stared at her for a moment as the information sank in, then surprised her by not flying into a panic. _I watch too much TV,_ she thought wryly.

He bit his lip and glanced up at the mountain looming over them, then back at her.

"I don't suppose you could make it to the Ninth Kingdom, then," he said, "Which is too bad since the dwarves always try to stay neutral during any wars. We'd be safe there."

He paused, but she was having another contraction and didn't answer._ How far apart were they now?_ she wondered. _Two minutes?_

"I guess we'd better head for Kissingtown," he decided, and stood up.

In the distance a wolf howled mournfully. Virginia's head snapped up as relief washed over her. She recognized that howl.

* * *

Reginald's head snapped around at the sound at the same time as Virginia's did.

"Oh, no . . ." he murmured, automatically taking Virginia by the elbow to propel her into quick movement before the beast could overtake them - if they had sufficient lead time, that is. He knew if all else failed, he did still have his sword, but though he didn't doubt his ability to save himself that way, he had no practice with trying to save another who could not fight. His thoughts of flight were brought up short by the inane grin that had suddenly spread over his pregnant ward's face, however.

_What is the matter with her? _he wondered irritably. Out loud, he merely said, "Come _on!_" knowing they had no time to spare for explanations now. Inexplicably, she yanked her arm away from his grip and stood her ground, still smiling.

_Elf-sucking wolf lover! _he thought angrily. _She's going to get us killed! She'll find out soon enough why Wendell should never have signed that pardon when the beast gets here! _He turned away, telling himself he could move faster without her and that she deserved what she was going to get for being a wolf-lover in the first place, but couldn't make himself actually leave: He knew his conscience would bother him for the rest of his life if he did. When the wolf howled again, much closer, he resigned himself to having to stand and fight it, and peremptorily drew his sword.

Virginia heard the ring of steel as it left its scabbard.

"No!" she shrieked, aghast.

"Listen!" he scolded her, "I don't care what you think you know about wolfs. They might be able to look like real people, but they aren't. They're evil. They kill for the pure pleasure of killing. They killed my brother. So just stay out of the way!"

She started to argue, but they were both interrupted by a rustling in the leaves. Reginald's eyes had no sooner darted to the spot when the wolf came charging out, moving at an unbelievable speed, his fangs bared. Mesmerized by its appearance - he'd never before seen one in the flesh, he thought - he stepped backwards and hesitated a split second before raising his sword. Still, he thought he might have been able to strike the creature a crippling blow if Virginia had not chosen that moment to shove him violently aside. His foot slipped and he fell heavily to the ground, his sword clattering away. Desperately, he turned back just in time to see Virginia open her arms wide to the beast as if to embrace her own death. He cringed, expecting her throat to be torn out, but incredibly, the thing hesitated for a moment, sniffing at her as a pet dog might, then knelt beside her as she sank to her knees, apparently in the throes of another labor pain, stroking her belly with its wicked claws so gently her robe did not even snag.

Reginald glanced at his sword, lying several steps away in the bracken. If he were quick, he might just make it before the beast could react, he thought. The trouble was, he couldn't make himself move, and though he tried to tell himself it might be because he was seeing something miraculous, he was afraid it was simply that he was too much of a coward: he remembered how the wolf had moved faster than he'd thought possible. But then, he reasoned, it's doing a lot of things I didn't think were possible . . .

His thoughts cut short as he watched its bones and muscles alter, its skin rippling with the change in a way that made him queasy. It took only a moment, then a man knelt in its place and he realized with a shock that it was no pet of Virginia's, but her lover. Reginald's confusion gave way to revulsion. _How could she lower herself to couple with that __**thing**_? he wondered, realizing at that moment the exact nature of the baby she was about to deliver.

Involuntarily, he dove for his sword, his only thought that he had to rid the world of such an abomination. Grasping the hilt like a swashbuckling hero, he rolled over it to his feet, fully expecting the beast to be spit on the blade as it rushed him, but it had all but ignored what he was doing, focusing its attention completely upon Virginia. Still, it growled at him menacingly as he cautiously approached it, sword at the ready.

"Put that down!"

The command carried a surprising amount of authority, like a mother reprimanding an errant child.

"And you," Virginia continued, shaking the wolf's arm, "Stop that."

The wolf quit growling and whined, "But Virginia . . ."

"I said put it down," she repeated severely to Reginald. Reluctantly, he lowered his blade. "What exactly were you going to do?" she demanded.

With a shock, he realized that he'd risked his life to get the sword with the thought of killing her baby, though he didn't tell her so._What's the matter with me?_ he wondered._ Even if it were necessary - of course it's necessary, the thing is a monster!_ – He gritted his teeth to hang on to his original thought, forcing the hate back down –_**Even if **__it were necessary, I couldn't do it until it's born; not without hurting Virginia!_ More evil thoughts assailed him - telling him he had to act now, quickly! - that he wasn't sure were really his, and he wondered if whatever had tried to influence him back at the army camp were at work again here. It was difficult to tell – obviously whatever it was wanted him to hate the wolfs, but that was something he'd always done . . . wasn't it?

Virginia had apparently not really expected him to answer her question. In the background, he could hear her explaining to her wolf how Reginald had saved her life. Strangely, the wolf seemed to accept what she'd said – in fact to act in all the respects that mattered as if he were a normal man. He seemed genuine, but was it really a trick as the voice (of reason or influence?) in his mind told him it must be? The fairy trick he'd used to determine Virginia's innocence was useless against the magic of nature beings . . .

_Nature beings?_ he thought suddenly. _Yes, they are! So how can they be evil? Nature isn't inherently evil . . . But the wolfs are; they always have been; it's just their nature! No, wait . . ._

He was still dithering, trying to figure out which course of action was the correct one when a shadow fell across the small clearing and the forest grew ominously quiet.

Virginia caught her breath against the next contraction and followed both Reginald's and her husband's astonished gazes up towards the sky. What she saw nearly made her forget she was in labor: There, silhouetted against the evening sun was the unmistakable shape of a dragon, its leathery wings outspread as it circled their clearing. Despite the long, spade-tipped tail which sailed behind it, she was uneasily reminded of a vulture.

Unable to tear her eyes away from the fantastical creature, she watched as it dipped gracefully forward, plunged the distance towards the ground and alit no more than fifty feet away from them with no more sound than the rush of air past its wings and the crunch of dead leaves and twigs beneath a soft footfall. Yet the dragon was immense, towering over them even from that distance, watching them speculatively - at least it seemed so to her - as it carefully folded its wings across its back. On the ground, she was suddenly seized with fear - with its wings no longer outspread, it resembled nothing so much as a living dinosaur - one of the predatory types, its wicked teeth visible along the line of its great jaw. Behind its head, she supposed to protect the upper portion of its sinewy neck, rose a bony, plated crest, and from this, as well as from where she might have called them whiskers, trailed what looked like long filaments of black ribbon. The hide appeared black in the shadows, but in the light seemed to refract the colors near it, and as she watched, the beast began to fade into a thickening mist, the last remnants of what she could see its glowing amber-colored eyes.

The mist thinned and a man walked forward from it, the dragon no longer visible. She blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened but succeeding only in becoming annoyed as she felt another contraction building. She needed to concentrate and the constant interruption of labor made it virtually impossible. By the time she could once again think, the man was squatting in front of her.

In coloring he was much like her husband, with olive skin and thick black hair, though his fell well past his shoulders, and he wore a full but neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed all in black, but his eyes - of a hazel so pale it appeared to be amber - were kind as he said, "I am sorry for the interference but it has unfortunately become necessary," then gave a kind of cursory glance in Reginald's direction before stretching out a long-fingered hand towards her belly.

Wolf caught him by the wrist.

"I mean you no harm," the man said without struggling.

"Why are you here?" her husband demanded.

"Wolf?" she asked. Did he know who this was, she wondered? Or, could this be the person he needed to protect her from? What might have happened had he touched her?

"I am afraid there is no time for a complete explanation," the man told them, with a meaningful look at her middle. "You must come with me."

She felt Wolf stiffen. "No," he said decisively. Still, if the man were as much of a threat as she'd thought, wouldn't Wolf have reacted much more strongly, she wondered?

"The journey will do none of you any harm," the man insisted, "And it requires no acrobatics; in practice it will be much the same as the transportation you were about to give the magic mirrors – though hopefully a bit smoother." He smiled, showing prominent, but even, very white teeth.

"Where are you taking us?" Virginia asked, her voice querulous.

"To Dragon Mountain," came the reply. "A mirror is about to be born there."

"What does that have to do with us?" Wolf demanded. "Why don't you just take us back to Wendell's castle?"

The man sighed in exasperation. "Because I don't fit inside it," he said. "I am sorry it has to be this way, but you must hurry and decide. The babe will come soon." As if to lend support to his words, Virginia felt another contraction overtake her, though she wondered at his explanation. If he didn't fit, did that mean that he was . . . ?

Her thought was abruptly cut off by a panicked shout from Reginald: "No!"

The man glanced back at him.

"I'm afraid you will have to come along as well," he said apologetically.

Strangely, Reginald's wild-eyed fear gave Virginia courage; grateful as she was for his rescuing her, she'd had enough of his irrational attitude. Why not go to Dragon Mountain, she thought? At least the dwarves probably had midwives, which was more than she was likely to get out here.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind than they were suddenly inside a vast cavern full of screaming dwarves. She had just enough time to comprehend that the dragon was standing directly over them before she heard the man's resonant voice say, clearly and loudly, "I come not in challenge." Then the dragon turned to mist and once again vanished from sight. The man was nowhere to be seen.

After what seemed like a long moment of dead silence, a bell rang in the distance and someone shouted, "All clear!" As if on cue, the dwarves all gathered in the center of the room, surrounding them, but their attention was not upon the three newcomers.

"Comrades!" declared a voice, "The birth of the new mirror is upon us!"

Virginia looked up, deja vu overcoming her as she once again saw a mirror rise from the roiling depths of liquid in the incubator. Though rectangular in shape, and not oval as the Truth Mirror had been, it too was covered with a crust of roughly hewn metal. As she watched, the husk abruptly shattered, revealing the newborn glass beneath.

"Behold the first Traveling Mirror born since recorded times!" declared the announcer. "It shall be a gift to the firstborn child of the heros of the Nine Kingdoms, Princess Virginia and her husband, the noble Wolf."

The irony of having her child receive a magical, enchanted birthday gift while her actual birth went on in the midst of the gift-givers, unattended, was not lost on Virginia, as another contraction, stronger than the rest, had plowed through her on what seemed like the heels of the one before. She panted, feeling the next one starting to build already, staring in a daze at the image of New York City as the mirror was gently lowered to the floor. The baby was starting to really come, she realized soberly. She half-felt as if she ought to push and wondered if it would really do any good to try and delay it.

Wolf exclaimed, "Huff puff, could it be?" under his breath, and put his arms around her, though not in the most comfortable position. She wanted to tell him to move just a bit when she realized he was picking her up.

"No!" she cried, "Wolf, no, don't . . . don't move me!" But her words did no good. He caught her up awkwardly against her feeble struggle and dashed through the mirror.

* * *

Tom stared at the picture of himself and Julie for a moment longer before he transferred it to the cardboard box into which he was putting all the personal items he kept in his office. His heart still felt the pang of loss, but he was no longer overwhelmed with guilt for her death; not since he'd met Wolf's aunt. Yet he'd found he could no longer continue with his old life – he felt as if that Tom Oberon had died with Julie and a new Oberon had come into being with the discovery of the Nine Kingdoms - or at least he was about to come into being; Tom, after what he knew were an excessive amount of absences, had decided to turn his practice entirely over to his partner. He'd put his co-op on the market and was about to make the Nine Kingdoms his home permanently. They had a need there for good doctors with his skill, he thought. Smiling sadly, he placed the picture gently into the box.

A flash of movement outside the window caught his eye and he looked up, his jaw agape as he watched a cistern on the roof of a building across Fifth Avenue suddenly burst, spilling its contents. More incredibly, the cistern on the adjoining building split open at the same time. Two pigeons which had alit on his sill turned to bright spots of iridescent color in the corner of his eye. They had flown away by the time he turned to stare at them, but below, in the park, something winked, a momentary spark of light. He knew by its position what it was.

His box forgotten, he took the express elevator down to street level and dashed out the door. Tremors shook the ground as he left the exit and he stumbled for a moment, looking up and down the street. Fire hydrants spewed their contents onto the concrete, creating miniature streams which cascaded noisily into the storm sewers, but strangely no one he passed seemed aware that anything was amiss. People caught cabs, hurried across streets against the traffic, which honked its horns and swerved around double-parked cars as if the day were like any other, even when the singular cloud in the clear blue sky, hovering over the antenna atop the Empire State building, sent an abrupt bolt of lightning onto the structure and the walls began to crack and split.

On the corner, the facade of the Plaza Hotel suddenly altered, its spires spinning upwards towards the sky, its walls glowing whiter, until it seemed as if it intended to imitate Neuschwanstein. At the same time, the surrounding buildings began to slowly sink into the earth.

Tom ran across the street to the park, towards the mirror, knowing that somehow the magic of the kingdoms had crossed over to the world of his birth, but not knowing how. As he looked back, the Chrysler building blossomed into a gossamer rain of multi-hued stardust, and a giant striding down the East River stepped gingerly across the Brooklyn Bridge. Passing older men and women sitting on benches, and young couples throwing bread crumbs to ducks on a pond, all seemingly oblivious, he ran, head down, feeling rather than seeing the Empire State building transform itself into a growing mountain in the center of the city - or what had been the city - his only thought that he must find the mirror quickly.

He came upon it abruptly, shocked back to his own reality by the sight of Wolf and Virginia crouching before it. It was obvious she was in the last stages of labor. Feeling less lost, that at least there was something here he could actually handle, he ran up to them, panting heavily.

"Doc, Doc, you're here!" exclaimed Wolf excitedly. "The baby, it's . . ."

"Yes, I see," he replied, kneeling beside Virginia. The lower part of her nightgown was soaked; he could see a dirty robe lying in the grass a few feet away, closer to the portal, which remained waveringly open. _Is that why this is happening? _his wondered inanely. _Should someone shut it off?_ With an effort, he forced himself to concentrate on the impending birth.

"You're doing fine," he told the mother. "I can see the head. Just push whenever you need to . . . yes, it's crowning, just one more push . . ."

Virginia yelped as the head broke free and Tom could hear Wolf whine in the background.

"Okay, don't push for a minute."

"Oh, right!" she retorted sarcastically, the way he'd heard all new mothers do.

Quickly, he made sure the baby's neck and throat were clear and then told Virginia to go ahead. The baby, a girl, plopped out into his arms, coughed, and began to wail. Just as suddenly he noticed that the ground was no longer shaking, but he forced himself to examine the infant carefully before allowing himself to look at his surroundings. After his experiences with Wolf, he was surprised to find that she looked in all respects that he could see, quite human.

Without preamble, he handed her to her waiting parents and purposely continued his regular procedure of taking care of the mother - waiting for the placenta to come and checking for any tears. Fortunately, Virginia required no stitches; he wasn't sure where he would have found anything to stitch her up with if she had. Only after all of that was done did he dare look up.

He was no longer in Central Park, but in a real forest which lay at the foot of a tall, snow-capped mountain. No trace of the city remained on the horizon except part of a spire of what had once been the Plaza Hotel, but which was now he didn't know what. A palace, perhaps, or a royal castle? The bustling noises of New York had faded into the soft caress of a breeze and the distant song of birds.

The mirror itself remained open; he wondered momentarily if closing it would break the spell, but it didn't look as if his patient or her husband could answer his questions or were even aware of what had happened: They had eyes for only their daughter.


	15. Epilogue

Epilogue

The baby sighed. Virginia looked down at her daughter, now sleeping in her arms, and ran her fingers lightly down the girl's soft cheek before returning her gaze to the window. The curse had been broken now for two weeks, but she still hadn't gotten used to what she saw outside in what had once been the city of New York. From her vantage point on the seventh floor of the palace (which she still thought of as the Plaza Hotel), in one of the turrets, she had a good view of the surrounding grounds and adjacent forest. _I really do live on the edge of the forest now,_ she thought, feeling a little eerie at having always felt this way when looking into Central Park.

After Lily - Virginia smiled and looked back down at the baby for a moment - after Lily had been born, and she and Wolf had time to get their bearings, they'd been as shocked as Dr. Oberon had been about what had taken place. For a moment, Virginia had wondered if the birth had affected her mind, but it hadn't taken Wolf long to figure out that Lily had been the "child" the prophecy had mentioned who could break the curse. Neither of them (or Tom) had any idea how she or Wolf fit the requirements, but there was no mistaking the effect. However it had been managed, it had worked. They had other things which needed their attention more, such as what to do now.

Since the Plaza Hotel was the only building they could see left standing, -_there's a weird thought_ - that was where they had headed, since neither was anxious to return to the Ninth Kingdom, where they'd essentially been ignored before, if they didn't have to. But even the transformation which had occurred around them hadn't prepared them for what they'd found: Waiting on the steps to greet them, dressed in the (modern) livery of servants, stood the Murray family.

Virginia had nearly turned around and ran for the Ninth Kingdom. Fortunately, Tom, who hadn't been aware of her dad's wish, waved to them first, and Mr. and Mrs. Murray had run out to meet them. To Virginia's surprise, they acted normally - still like servants, but like the ones in Wendell's castle, not like enchanted slaves. Her father's wish had evidently gone with the curse, leaving the Murrays with no real recollection of it - for which she was grateful - anymore than they had any real recollection of their lives in New York City at all. Yet they hadn't simply appeared out of nowhere. When she'd asked, Mr. Murray had told her he was quite aware of the enchantment on the kingdom, and therefore themselves, and glad to be rid of it. They had thanked her profusely (though without ass-kissing or shoe-licking), and welcomed them home. She'd been even more surprised to find that the Plaza Hotel was now her personal castle, but there was no denying it when they'd ushered her into her room, still wearing her soiled nightgown, and shown her the clothes in the wardrobe. They were all her clothes; both the ones she knew she'd owned in New York, _and_new ones which fit her exactly - no mean trick for a woman who had just given birth.

She'd washed up and changed, but despite being tired, couldn't sleep; she'd been far too excited. So she'd been awake that evening when her father and Samantha had come through the portal, bearing news that the war in the Fourth Kingdom had ended. Her father had been surprised that his own grandchild had been the one to break the curse, but Samantha had assured him that the prophecy probably would have told them so long ago if they'd ever had the entire copy to go by. They'd stayed up late into the night discussing how the war had ended (the army that had captured Virginia had suddenly decided a law in Wendell's kingdom wasn't worth risking their own lives for), and an old loose end that was - hopefully - finally tied up: Dr. Mellifict had been recaptured. Her dad had told them that he'd been found in the Fifth Kingdom's army camp, still raving about killing all the half-wolfs and trying to incite the soldiers to attack. They'd been as glad to be rid of him then as Wendell was to get him back into custody. Her father had also told how Wolf's brother Rafe had been released; he'd seemed sane, if depressed, since his reunion with Queen Riding Hood, and with the breaking of the curse, Wendell had decided he probably presented no further danger. He hadn't wanted to come with them to New York, however (Tony had invited him for politeness's sake, though it had been obvious that he was relieved when Rafe had said no), but instead accompanied Queen Hood back to the Second Kingdom at her request. But probably what took the most of their attention had been trying to account for what had happened to the Manhattan they knew - and all its attendant people.

Roscoe had visited briefly, bringing a map of the "Restored Kingdoms" with him later. It showed an island kingdom (or a continent kingdom, depending on what you wanted to define as an island) off the southern coast of the Second Kingdom and western coast of the Third which had not previously been there. In outline, it didn't look much like Manhattan at all, nor did it resemble any chunk of the country which contained Manhattan. But this, instead of clearing up their confusion about what had happened to the place and the people, only confused them more. Virginia supposed they might never really know. Strangely, she didn't really care, although she felt as if she should. She'd never been really close to any of the people she'd worked with, and her own family were all accounted for - Tom had found her grandmother - and her little dog Roland - when he'd gone for a hike a few days after the birth, living with a tree fairy somewhere in the vicinity of where her old apartment had been (as near as Virginia could tell). She hadn't really wanted to leave, and had complained to Virginia later about how rude the fairy had suddenly become to her when Tom had shown up and said she needed to come with him. "Fickle things, just like the stories all say," she'd snapped. "Couldn't do enough for me to start with and then couldn't be rid of me quickly enough when he came by!" Not that her grandmother had objected to the palace. In fact, she'd become quite insufferable since discovering that Virginia's child had broken the curse, telling everyone within earshot repeatedly how she'd always known she was descended from royalty.

Virginia looked back down at the quiet infant in her arms, then stepped over to lay her gently in her cradle, so she could begin dressing. Today had been chosen as Lily's naming day, a wolf tradition where the child was given its name - to be used later only by those who'd attended the ceremony and their close relatives. Though they'd called her "Lily" since birth, this would make it official for her wolf relatives, most of whom were expected to attend. Millie would definitely be coming, of course, accompanied by Wolf's sister Abby, and hopefully also his other sister Dierdre and her husband Stephen and their son (whose name Virginia hadn't yet learned). But although Rafe had been invited, she didn't really expect him to attend, though she supposed there was an outside chance that if Queen Riding Hood attended (all the royals had received invitations), he would come as well. She thought it extremely unlikely that any royalty (except Wendell) would take time out of their busy day to attend a wolf-child's naming ceremony, however. Nor did she think Grandmaster Wizard Roscoe would be attending, though he, also, had received an invitation. Regardless, she knew she had to be present and waiting in front of the portal for any guests who might arrive, and quickly donned the simple blue dress she had chosen.

At the exact time of the appointed hour, King Wendell stepped through the portal.

"Virginia!" he exclaimed happily, and kissed her on the cheek before turning to receive the arriving Lord Rupert and Princess Gwendolyn. But before she could greet the two newcomers, they stepped aside and another guest came through: The Dwarf King, who immediately turned himself to allow Reginald, the soldier who had helped Virginia escape her imprisonment arrive. The diminutive king then turned to Virginia.

"Lovely lady, I would like to apologize for the way you were treated on your last visit to us," he began.

"Oh, yeah, right," muttered her husband loudly, to her chagrin. He was already shifting from foot to foot with having to wait by the portal. Virginia handed Lily to him and he quickly settled down, however.

The king continued, "Although I assure you that your health and well-being were in no way being neglected - in truth, one of our midwives had been dispatched to serve you - we were entirely remiss in hospitality; we should have made certain you were informed that someone was on the way. As it was, she arrived just as you were both leaving . . ."

"And they wouldn't let me follow," chimed in Reginald.

The king looked up at him testily.

"No," he said as if he'd repeated it too many times already. "The new traveling mirror is a gift to the newborn princess. We do not use our gifts before we give them." He glanced back at Wolf quickly and added in a more mollifying tone, "The recipient is, of course, permitted to use the gift ahead of time if need be. And, as the gift is promised . . ."

He gestured grandly back toward the portal, which flashed briefly, then suddenly became bordered in the familiar gilt frame with circular designs of a traveling mirror.

"The two mirrors have now been tuned to each other," he explained. "From now on, it will be possible to control the portal from both sides."

"We can move it?" asked Wolf.

The old dwarf nodded, smiling.

"Yes," he said. "So it's no longer necessary for everyone to stand about outside waiting on the other arrivals."

The new mirror was promptly set up in the entrance foyer of the palace, where Murray was assigned to keep watch for the arriving guests. Unlike the outdoor portal in the near-wilderness, it didn't seem necessary for the hosts to be present themselves for the arrivals; they'd simply be greeted by a servant as they would when they entered any other palace.

This, of course, left them quite a bit of time to socialize with each other in the drawing room, which had once been the lobby of the hotel and to Virginia's eyes didn't look vastly different from the way it once had. Wolf began by asking the Dwarf King if he had any idea why all the mirrors led to New York in the first place.

"Well, I can't be certain," the old dwarf hedged, "but I'd suppose that they led there because that was the home of Virginia the Fair, one of those who could break the curse. There had to be some means for her to travel to our world, else the curse could never be broken."

"But it didn't lead to New York when Grimm used it two hundred years ago," Tony pointed out.

"Two hundred years ago Virginia's family may not have lived in New York," surmised the dwarf. "Would they have?"

Virginia laughed. Tony admitted it wasn't likely, and Grandma sniffed disdainfully.

"My family _was_ from Austria," she intoned, as if that explained everything.

"Well, mine was too," Tony told her. "Not the Lewises, but my mother's family; they were from Bavaria."

"Oh, well, Bavaria . . ." Grandma waved her hand in dismissal. "I suppose that does explain your great interest in beer."

"Well, whichever side of Virginia's family was involved," interposed Samantha, "I think we can be reasonably sure, given what we do know from the prophecy, that she's descended from the ruling family of the previously mythical Tenth Kingdom."

"I don't see that there's any question involved," continued Grandma. "It's quite obvious which side of the family is the royal one." She smiled archly.

Virginia found herself wanting to shake her grandmother. At the same time, she couldn't help being glad that the woman had finally thrown off the depression she'd gone into following her encounter with the Swamp Witch. If only she could find some pleasant middle ground . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by Reginald, who pulled her slightly aside to apologize for his behavior at the base of Dragon Mountain.

"I should have realized I was being influenced," he explained. "It's just that it was so difficult to tell when the curse was influencing me to do something I was conditioned to do otherwise. That is, not that I would have attacked your husband knowing who he was. I meant wolfs in general, you know."

His sister abruptly interrupted this little speech with, "I cannot believe you thought I was being held prisoner by Wendell!"

He turned bright red with embarrassment, giving Virginia the opportunity to say, "I'm just glad you were able to see through the curse well enough to get me out of there," and to gracefully excuse herself. It was obvious that he was by no means over his dislike of wolfs; she realized that absence of the curse would not erase the old prejudices against them, and her chest tightened as she looked over at her smiling husband cuddling their newborn daughter. Before her thoughts became too maudlin, however, Murray entered and announced the arrival of the "Wolf family."

They entered practically all at once: Millie, Abby, Dierdre, and Stephen, carrying his and Dierdre's five month old son. It was Virginia's first good look at her nephew, and though she expected him to have a tail (they had not bothered to hide it in the company of all who knew they were wolfs anyway), she was astounded to see that he had a full set of teeth.

"Oh, yes, we're born with all our milk teeth," Millie told her in response to her remark about how quickly they'd come in, as if it were common knowledge. "Does your daughter not have them? Not that she should; she's not a full-blooded half-wolf." With that, she walked over to see little Lily's teeth (or lack thereof) for herself, leaving Virginia rather stunned and somewhat glad she'd never heard that little detail before, as it hardly mattered now. Unless, she thought, she and Wolf had another child . . .

"Grandmaster Wizard Roscoe," announced Murray.

Virginia's head snapped around just in time to see the old wizard walk into the room, wearing his ubiquitous stained overalls and flannel shirt.

"I would'na miss it," he told her in response to her obvious amazement.

"Is anyone else coming?" a female voice asked quietly at her elbow. She turned to see Abby standing there. "If not, we could get started."

Virginia hesitated a moment, not knowing if she should mention Rafe or not. Surely, if her brother were coming, Abby would be aware of it? But before she could form a question, the Dwarf King interrupted them.

"If your expected guests have all arrived, I've got a special request to fulfill," he told them. "Queen Cinderella told us she wanted very much to attend, but didn't feel well enough to make the overland trip to Wendell's castle. I agreed to refocus the mirror - temporarily - to her castle to accommodate her."

Speechless at the last Great Woman of History's desire to attend her daughter's ceremony, Virginia gestured to him to go ahead. But before he made it out to the hall, Murray had reappeared once more.

"Queen Riding Hood III and her companion," he announced, and the room grew silent.

* * *

Rafe held his breath, wary, despite reassurances, of the meeting with his brother and sister-in-law. His last unfettered meeting with Virginia was all too clear in his mind, and despite having been told that the curse, and not he, was responsible for his actions, he knew deep in his heart that it wasn't really so: If he had not allowed the hate to consume him following the death of his family, it would not have been so easy for the curse to make use of him; and he had done far worse things than try to eat his brother's mate. But the self-hate into which he had sunk had been just as bad, in fact easier for the curse to use and more difficult to shake off. Even now it threatened to overwhelm him; he had to consciously battle it back down, and he glanced over at the lovely woman at his side for strength, realizing even as he did so that she was taking her strength from him.

_Odd,_he thought, _that we would have so much in common, and ironic that the mistakes she made which fueled my hatred now give me the strength to live. But if I can see the good in her, despite everything, then I feel there is hope still for me as well. _He squeezed her hand, and together they stepped into the reception chamber.

The room was immense, but he'd become somewhat inured to royal palaces by then and was only really conscious of spaciousness broken at intervals by pale marble columns, and great golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. His family, gathered at a seating area by a nearby fireplace, took all of his attention. It occurred to him that he hadn't seen all of them together since Simon's wedding.

Aunt Millie looked pensively at him as if she expected him to fly into a rage - _or break down,_ he reflected - any moment, though she remained silent. Dierdre was holding a cub too old to be Simon's newborn, which confused him momentarily until he remembered that she'd also been pregnant at the wedding. His eyes picked out Virginia, who regarded him warily, standing with her hands on his brother's shoulders, behind him, as he held a small bundle which consumed literally all of his attention. Rafe realized that the passion Simon had always expressed towards everything was probably multiplied many times for him with the cub; he looked as if he were aware of no one else in the room besides his child (and possibly his mate); he hadn't even bothered to look up as they'd entered. Strangely, and with more relief than he believed possible, Rafe felt no jealousy towards the new parents for what he himself had lost; merely a vast internal emptiness broken only by the slight whisper of possibility in the woman beside him. She was truly his mate; there was no denying that destiny had brought them together, but although he knew the possibility of a family still existed for him, he shrank away from the idea. The loss of Melody and Charlie was still too raw; he wouldn't knowingly expose his heart to that risk - at least not yet. Maybe with time he could do it, but right now it was still too soon. Besides, he thought with a small smile, she was still the queen and he a wolf. Despite the decrees she had made for equality of wolfs when they'd returned to the Second Kingdom, he knew that centuries of prejudice could not simply be legislated away. Even if she forced everyone to accept him as her consort, it would be years before the idea of mixed children in the royal house would be accepted, and even then, he knew his status as a commoner would likely give the anti-wolf faction some legal ground to prevent their succession, at least, if not their legitimacy. Such things were too personal for him to battle for at the moment.

"Claret," King Wendell began politely, "How wonderful you could attend!"

"Please, Wendell, call me Claire. I've never really liked Claret and am frankly tired of the color red, blasphemous as that may sound," she replied, smiling kindly, and turned to Virginia. "I hope we weren't interrupting anything."

"Oh!" Virginia exclaimed, tearing her considerably voracious attention from him. If he hadn't smelled her wariness and reserved hostility towards him, he'd certainly have noticed it from her surprised reaction. "No, no, we haven't started yet."

"Virginia," he began softly, with a quick glance down at his brother, who still did not look up. Nevertheless, Rafe did not make the mistake of believing Simon was paying no attention to him; if he were to attack Virginia as he had before, he had no doubt that his brother would spring to her defense faster than he could blink. The thought gave him renewed admiration for Simon; nine years of prison with no hope of parole or pardon had failed to do to him what a single year of self-imprisonment had done to Rafe - he had become not the curse's pawn, but its conqueror. Even had he not already demonstrated his physical superiority, Rafe would acknowledge him the family's alpha for that alone.

"I want to apologize for my behavior toward you," he continued when she replied only by re-focusing her attention on him. He realized then that although he could smell a great deal of wariness on her, she had very little real fear. And, what fear she did have seemed to be for her cub's behalf. It occurred to him that her fear might always have been only for her cub.nOut loud, he said, "There is no excuse for the way I acted. I simply wanted you to know that I won't behave so in the future." He looked away from her penetrating blue gaze and felt, rather than saw her hostility wane.

"Apology accepted," she told him simply.

"I've heard you instituted a wolf pardon too," Wendell was saying to Claire.

"More than that," she replied proudly. "The Second Kingdom has declared wolfs to be full and equal citizens, which is more than the Fourth Kingdom has yet done."

"Ah, really . . . ?" sputtered the Fourth Kingdom's king. "Well . . ."

Rafe noticed irascibly that while Wendell seemed to be genuinely chagrined at being out-maneuvered, his paramour looked slightly aghast at the possibility of wolfs as equal citizens. Or, maybe he was just being uncharitable, he thought, and Rupert was really aghast at Wendell's _faux pax. _

"Yes, I've even appointed a Minister of Wolfs to see that their rights are upheld," she continued with a meaningful glance in his direction to let everyone know exactly who the new Minister was. Almost all of them stared at him in surprise.

"Do they know that he's a . . ." Wendell started to ask.

"They do now," she replied ominously, leaving them to work out on their own that none of the existing council had known he was a wolf until some days after they'd been working together. It still gave him immense satisfaction to remember the looks on their faces. "And any who objected too strongly are no longer among my advisors."

"They resigned?" asked Wendell.

"I asked for their resignation," she replied. "I am the Queen of the Second Kingdom, which is - technically - an absolute monarchy. My mother and I relied heavily on our advisors, but I realized while I was . . . away . . . that it wasn't legally necessary for me to heed them. I only wish I had realized it earlier."

"And this works?" he asked.

"Works?" she repeated. "Does your wolf pardon work, Wendell? It's a step, that's all. But it's a step in the right direction."

Whatever Wendell might have replied was cut short by the butler's announcement.

"Queen Cinderella of the First Kingdom!"

Rafe's eyes shot to the foyer doorway, astounded that the ancient queen would leave her self-imposed cloister; so far as he knew, she hadn't appeared in public in over fifty years. As he watched her enter, however, he wondered if maybe this wasn't a descendent and not the original; she seemed too young for the two-hundred year old queen. As was her custom, however, she entered flanked by two very ugly female attendants.

"Virgil assures me I haven't missed anything," she said huskily to Virginia as she slowly crossed the room. "But I do hope I haven't kept you waiting."

As she drew near, Rafe realized from her scent that she was indeed the aged Great Queen. But he had just begun to process that information when a somewhat harried porter rushed into the room, exclaiming, "There's a dragon in the courtyard!"

* * *

He walked in through the front door as the others had done, in his human form, the dark-haired, black garbed man Samantha remembered so well from her dream. The sight of him here, in the "real" world stunned her, making her feel momentarily dizzy, and she clutched onto Tony's arm.

"Are you okay?" he murmured to her.

"Oh, yes, fine," she replied distractedly.

"You sure?" he sounded dubious, as if she were hiding something from him which he ought to know about - and considering what the dragon had told her, she supposed it was true, in a way. Still, she could think of no real way to bring the subject up.

"Forgive me for interrupting," said the dragon, addressing Virginia and Wolf, and incidentally giving Samantha a chance to recover her thoughts. "But may I attend the ceremony? I understand if you wish it to remain private - however I do have a personal reason for the request. I may tell it to you afterwards, as circumstances allow."

"What does that mean - 'as circumstances allow'?" Tony muttered irritably under his breath, and she poked him.

Wolf and Virginia looked at each other, then down at their baby. Finally, Virginia said, "Of course. If it weren't for you, Li . . . our baby would probably have been born at the base of Dragon Mountain." Then, realizing what she'd just called the place she'd named, she blushed furiously.

"Shall we get started, then?" asked Wolf's aunt. No one objected, so she indicated that they should all go outdoors.

The naming ceremony, which celebrated the child's relationship with the elements and creatures of nature, surprised Samantha nearly as much as the dragon's appearance had. Chagrined at the revelation that she'd never really thought of the wolfs as a people with a distinct culture, she realized how difficult it was really going to be to achieve the reform which Queen Riding Hood and King Wendell had begun. After all, Samantha had never thought of herself as particularly prejudiced or uninformed, and even she had thought them uncivilized.

Interestingly, it was the bard sister, and not the aunt, who performed the actual rites, dubbing the child "Lily" to all the friendly spirits present, who were thereafter charged with keeping her name safe from those who might mis-use it. The baby awoke just in time for the end of the ceremony and stared at her aunt with round eyes and a serious expression as her father held her proudly up for the presentation. But when she went to ask the young woman about her role afterwards, she found the dragon-man had arrived there first.

"That was beautiful," he told her. "And not very much changed in the thousand years since the Basquel once performed it."

Samantha blinked. She felt as if she'd just been told something which ought to make everything clear, but whose exact nature still eluded her. Wolf's sister looked confused.

"So we got the custom from the Basquel?" she asked.

"No," he said, "Not exactly. You see, the half-wolfs _are_ the Basquel."

Samantha gasped, the realization hitting her. _Of course, it all makes sense now!_

"Exactly," he said, smiling. "I told you it was right in front of you. Of course, so was what you found, but there was no need to limit yourself."

"What do you mean, we _are_ the Basquel?" asked the bard.

"Shall we sit down, and I'll tell you the story?" said the dragon. Samantha sat down at once, pulling Tony down beside her. She noticed the faces of the others looked as stunned as she herself felt. When they'd all become comfortable on the ground (with the exception of Cinderella, who remained in the chair which had been provided for her during the ceremony), the dragon began:

"Long ago there lived a princess. Her family ruled the people that called themselves the Basquel, but were known to legend as the dryads, who possessed a kind of nature magic. It was rumored that the royal family contained some dragon blood from a long-ago alliance with a dragon prince, and that because of this, they were stronger in their magic than the average citizen. But the princess was the strongest in magic of any in the kingdom, and was encouraged by her family to develop her ability, so becoming with practice a great sorceress of her people. In due time, she became betrothed to a prince of the neighboring island kingdom, who had been her childhood friend. The two were deeply in love and looked forward to a long life of happily ever after together, as well as a union of the two nations, as both were the heirs to their respective thrones. However, the ruler of a rival kingdom, jealous of the prosperity enjoyed by the dryads, formed an evil plan to gain their kingdom for his own, and directed his necromancer to develop a method of eliminating the populace without destroying the fertility of the land.

"On the eve of the wedding, which coincided with one of the most powerful of magic times - the full moon in Cancer on Midwinter's eve - the necromancer loosed a powerful disease upon the dryad population. People and most wild animals (the disease did not affect domestic animals at the evil king's request) were overcome with madness - a raging delirious fever which came and went. Although not all were affected at once, the disease spread - so that the loved ones of those affected became infected first, along with those healers who had tried to treat them. It was known that the attack of an infected animal would also infect the victim. There was no cure and the disease was invariably fatal. The couple postponed their wedding so that the sorceress-princess could devote all her time to finding a cure. She worked night and day, but still it wasn't fast enough as the people were dying by the hundreds. Eventually the king and queen became infected, and they, too, passed away, leaving only the princess and a much younger brother. Yet she still worked on, assuming the title of queen without benefit of formal coronation as there was no time for it. Her betrothed remained by her side (the island status of his kingdom gave it immunity, and he rightly assumed his people would be safer anyway in case he or his servants inadvertently carried the infection home - plus he loved his intended wife and wished to stay with her), and she felt as if he were her only anchor to her own survival as her family and friends died around her. Yet the only weakness she could find in the disease was in its refusal to attack certain animals. With study she found that, of the higher wild animals, only the wolves were immune. Although it was likely due to their close genetic relationship with domestic dogs, she seized upon this singularity as the key to the problem. Her fiancé, on the other hand, tried to draw her attention to the odd nature of a disease in general which attacks everything but domestic animals, believing quite rightly that its origin was magical. But his lady was under too much distress by that point to listen clearly, and at that moment, in fact, one of the infected study animals broke loose and attacked him. Acting in haste because she dared not lose him above all others, she invoked a spell she had recently devised which would give to him the wolves' immunity. Unfortunately, due to the magical nature of the original attack, the two spells fused and her lover became the first of the half-wolfs - forever bound to experience the madness with the coming of each full moon, and unable to escape what he was because the spell of a dryad sorceress is a spell of nature: What he became, he became, and so also any of his descendants would be. Because it was again full moon, she saw immediately the effects of her spell, and that it wasn't what she'd intended, however she also knew his life was no longer in danger. So, to be with him, she cast the spell again upon herself, and they coupled in the madness. With the waning of the moon, however, he became more and more disgusted with what he had become, and with her for making them both into what he considered freaks. So, in a final effort to appease him (though he didn't ask it of her) she cast the spell on the entire remaining population of her kingdom so he would no longer feel different. This also effectively stopped the disease and its spread, but the prince was only horrified by what his princess/queen had done, and unable to bear living his life in thrall to the moon, threw himself from the castle's highest tower. The sight of his broken, lifeless body stripped the young queen of what remained of her sanity. In a fury of hate, she shut herself up in her workroom and invoked the curse which would deprive his kingdom of magic - for he had spurned the magic with which she saved him - and set it apart from all others, so that none might see or remember it, while his people would never recall the existence of any others. But likewise, because he had hated what he had become, so she also hated it, and cursed the day she'd transformed her people into creatures they could never accept being (to her thought), though she could not take their lives to end their suffering since she could not bear to see her sweet dear brother, the only remaining of her loved ones, die. Because she still loved him even as the curse was cast, there would remain one way by which it could be broken - if a descendant of her betrothed's line could ever come to love one of her brother's descendants for what he now was, and bear a child from the union. Unfortunately, in her madness, she was not content with such a simple dissolution, and filled the curse's dissolving with meaningless and irrational trivia, such as the necessity of having the birth take place in her lover's kingdom, among other things. Such a curse required a blood seal to guarantee its continuance. She sealed it with her life.

"As for the rival king and his necromancer, they gained the dryads' kingdom, but at a price. All who entered were invariably attacked during the full moon by maddened (but to the outsiders, apparently invisible at other times) wolves. Eventually, however, they understood that the creatures were involuntary shape-changers, and the persecution of the half-wolfs began. It continues to this day."

His last words fell on silence. Samantha was still trying to work out what the ramifications of the curse's being dissolved meant, when Helen piped up, "How romantic!" and then jabbed Tony in the arm and sniffed, "See? I always told you that you married into royalty. You just never had any respect for your betters."

The dragon-man cleared his throat. "Ma'am, your own line may be quite strong in the magical arts, however the parent through which Virginia is descended from the island king's ruler is her father."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Helen, blinking. "You can't be serious." But her voice wavered even as she said the words. Samantha wanted to shout in triumph, so tired was she of the woman's never-ending put-downs of Tony, but looking at Tony's face she could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as his expression went quickly from shocked surprise to crafty, dangerous smile. She suspected he might end up being even worse at Helen's game than the old woman was, and wondered how long it would be before she tired of listening to insults being hurled the other direction, but it didn't take her long to decide that after listening to her for over twenty years, Tony was long overdue any retort he wished.

"I feel a migraine coming on," the old woman announced in a pained voice. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I'll go lie down." She got up and walked towards the castle, her back ramrod straight.

So absorbed was Samantha in Tony's reaction that she barely heard Virginia's question:

"So, in other words, Wolf is a descendent of the Basquel Queen's brother?"

"Yes," the dragon assured her. "Else his child could not have broken the curse."

"They are royals," said a woman's voice. Samantha looked back to see Queen Riding Hood speaking. "Sovereigns of a kingdom within the Second long thought dead, but still living." She turned to Wolf, who was nuzzling his daughter's face, seemingly the least affected by the revelation of all of them. "You, sir, are the King of the Wolfs."

"What?" he asked. "No. That was a thousand years ago. The wolfs have no king. We're just wolfs."

"But . . ."

"He's quite right," the dragon told her. "The Basquel may have been transformed, but they never ceased to exist. The monarchy died out with the casting of the curse, however. There is no Wolf King."

"There could be," she stubbornly insisted.

"I have no desire to be the King of the Wolfs," Wolf told her coldly. "I couldn't do it from here anyway, since I have no intention of leaving my family."

Despite her insistence that Wolf was a king, his statement seemed to satisfy her, which mystified Samantha until Claire pointedly asked, "May I take that as an abdication?"

Wolf glared at her; Samantha thought he probably only avoided growling so as not to upset the baby. "How can I abdicate a throne that doesn't exist?" he demanded.

"I see what you're doing," his brother put in suddenly. "Unfortunately it won't work."

She looked up at him crossly.

"The wolfs would never accept a 'Wolf King,' you see, as there's never been one," he explained. "The fact that our ancestors might have been royal a millennium ago would mean nothing to them now. In any case, I am not the person for such a position."

"Those in the Second Kingdom accept me, a human, as their queen," she said. "And I am certainly less qualified than you to lead them. Acceptance by the wolf population is not the issue."

They all looked at her, perplexed.

"The wolfs may not care about your illustrious ancestry, but the nobility who would object to you as my legal and recognized husband would be forced to acknowledge you as a royal with an older lineage than they themselves - or I, for that matter - possess. Once we marry, you would be co-ruler of the Second Kingdom; and by default the wolfs - those in the Second Kingdom - would accept you as their ruler, in their case, not because of a thousand year old bloodline, but because you were married to me."

He looked away. "I understand," he said quietly. "You're right, the wolfs would accept a king under those circumstances. I am simply not fit to be their leader."

"Oh," she replied quietly. Samantha could tell she had taken his words as a rejection. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who had, as Virginia said, "But aren't you their leader now?"

The couple both looked at her.

"I mean, as Minister of Wolfs, don't you do essentially the same job? Oversee the rights of the wolfs?"

Claire looked away and bit her lip, not seeing the light of consideration entering her companion's eyes. In the end it was Wolf, who Samantha thought had lost interest in favor of staring at his now sleeping infant, who clinched it: "You're more fit than I am to lead them," he said. "You were always the one so interested in wolfs' rights and reform laws. Plus, you're the only wolf there is who has Queen Riding Hood as a lifemate!" He smiled toothily, and Claire looked up, surprised, to see her man staring at her meaningfully.

"That's true," he admitted quietly.

Behind them, Cinderella wheezed, exclaiming, "Oh, paugh! Honey, take my advice; I've lived a long, long time. When the shoe fits, you wear it. And remember, in my kingdom, that's an honor, not an insult."

Everyone laughed.

"Very well," the future Wolf King said to Claire, so softly Samantha imagined it was meant for her ears alone, though she was too close to the couple not to overhear him, "I shall ask you and then we can stop talking about 'if ever' and 'if only' and 'maybe someday'. Will you marry me?"

She smiled with a sigh, obviously relieved, and replied, "Well, of course I will!"

Everyone applauded and Claire blushed. Her fiancé simply smiled, his eyes never leaving her face.

Feeling that the tension was over and that the dragon might soon leave, Samantha hurried to say, "While I understand that everything has been restored because the curse has been lifted, I do wonder why a Guardian of Time would involve himself in the affairs of the world. Aren't you supposed to remain neutral? At least the wizards have always viewed your role as neutral observers; it was your system, in fact, on which the council modeled their own."

He smiled at her, humor in his amber-colored eyes.

"Tell me," he said, "What purpose would a guardian serve who merely watched, but did nothing when it was necessary?"

"So you are a Guardian," she said, pouncing on his virtual admission.

"What's a Guardian of Time?" asked Virginia. "Don't tell me _Doctor Who_ lives in the Nine Kingdoms too!"

Everyone was uncomfortably silent for a moment. Samantha noticed the dragon-man looking pointedly at Cinderella.

"Oh, all right, I'll explain," she agreed, "But I may not get it exactly right, after all, I'm not one of you . . . yet. What it is, is after a person has lived an eventful life, they pass on, but their spirit is allowed to still interact in the affairs of this world for certain worthwhile goals - mostly to help other individuals fulfill their destinies. Usually the destinies in question are close to what the spirit's destiny was in life, or the spirit works to serve his or her descendants or those close to them. If you're wondering, it's the wizards who call them 'Guardians of Time', although I'm not really sure exactly what 'time' has to do with it; _we_ call them Fairy Godmothers or Fairy Godfathers."

"Like Snow White?"

"I'm certain that she probably is one, yes. But this sort of thing - a curse cast eons ago from where the Second Kingdom is now wouldn't likely involve her." The old woman paused and looked speculatively at the dragon. "That story you told us said it was rumored that the Basquel royal house contained dragon blood from long in their past. Now that wouldn't have anything to do with your own involvement, would it?" She smiled charmingly, her eyes dancing.

"It might," the dragon-man acknowledged, "But that story has little to do with the present. As for your curiosity concerning time, it probably has to do with how different the future would be for not just a few, but many people, if certain individuals failed to fulfill their destinies. Even so, the help is usually in the form of advice. We only interfere materially when a destiny is continually blocked by opposition."

"Like obstacles being continually thrown in our path by the curse?" asked Virginia.

He nodded. "Or by a wicked stepmother," he said, smiling at Cinderella.

"Like that death-watch thing," Tony put in. "Whatever happened with that anyway?"

"It lost power with the breakin' o' the curse," piped up the Grandmaster. "It's just a plain ol' watch now, though it does'na work no more ta keep time."

"But where did it come from?"

"Coulda come from anywheres," was the answer. "'Tis nothin' but junk."

"It was an ordinary watch that had been enchanted," interpreted Samantha.

"Aww, well that's a disappointment!" he exclaimed. At their bewildered stares, he hastily added, "I mean, I thought there would be a more . . . um . . . magical explanation. Like the watch was some long-lost artifact or something. Not that I wanted to keep it . . . You know, like that prophecy thing?"

"Aye, the prophecy." Roscoe nodded. "What was t'whole t'ing anyway? Was it ever found?"

"Oh, I found it," blurted Claire, looking still somewhat distracted by the mention of the erstwhile watch.

"_You_ did?" Wendell demanded.

"Well, yes, when we went looking . . ." she started to explain in a small voice, but then said, "But it's totally useless, really. I mean, now I've heard the whole story, I still can't imagine figuring that all out from what was written."

"Well, where is it? Can we see it for ourselves?"

"It's in a drawer in my bedchamber."

"You didn't bring it?"

"No. Why should I have?" she asked defensively. "The curse is broken now anyway, and regardless, the thing was useless, like I told you."

Unexpectedly, the dragon came to her aid. "She's right," he said. "The prophecy was useless. But if you insist on hearing it anyway, I can recite the entire thing for you:

"_Upon a hill, in the world of old  
Sleeps a story, remains untold  
Sit back, learn this lesson well  
Of a kingdom under a great spell..._

_"Imagine a land, so wealthy, serene  
Lived the dryads, gentle has been  
But peace here was to end soon  
Midwinter's Eve, full of the moon_

_"A kingdom that once thrived  
In the end, no one survived  
Land barren, desolate, dry  
In the dark, a piercing cry_

_"Basquel Queen, her time to end  
A broken heart that will not mend  
By her hand, her love's great pain  
Determined to save what remain_

_"In a whisper, with her last breath  
Promise sealed with her death  
Gathered her strength, eyes closed  
Wove these words, full of woe:_

_"My dearest, my love, one last spell  
I cloak your people, hide them well  
I promise you with all my heart  
A child twixt two shall take part_

_"Evil passed over, nothing can quell  
My heart, my people, my kingdom fell  
I did what I thought was best for all  
To save the people, and you ere the fall_

_"Your eyes, once kind, turned cold _  
_I saw no love, only the hate you hold _  
_On deaf ears fell my woeful pleas _  
_Love me again, I fell to my knees _

"_Cursing my name, you turned away _  
_Eyes looking skyward, as if to pray _  
_My body, frozen, as if a dream _  
_Lifting my head to heaven, screamed_

"_By his hand, he took his life _  
_Ease his spirit, tormented by strife _  
_Welcoming death with open arms _  
_He fell blinded to her charms. _

"_I have plunged to eternal dark_  
_Must naught return peace to my heart?_  
_Return with Oberon to your native land_  
_Ere the hourglass drains of sand."_

When he had finished, he looked at Samantha and said, by way of explanation, "I told you I was terrible at riddles."

"You wrote that?"

"Someone has to."

Ignoring their digression, Virginia asked, "What was that about returning with Oberon?"

"Yes," agreed Tom. "What was that?"

"Just one of the trivial stipulations I told you about in the story. In order to make it more difficult for the curse to be broken, she required Oberon to be present at the child's birth."

"But Oberon doesn't exist!" exclaimed Rupert. "He's merely a legend."

"As was the Tenth Kingdom only three weeks ago," replied the dragon sagely. "He certainly existed in the Basquel Queen's day. The stipulation wouldn't have been effective if he hadn't."

"He was trapped here, wasn't he?" asked Gwendolyn, with a sideways glance at Tom.

"What?" exclaimed Tom, comprehending her meaning. "No, I hardly think so. At least _I'm_ not him, which is what you seem to be implying. I have very clear memories of my childhood in Farmington, thank you. More likely it was one of those loopholes that allow anyone named Oberon to fill the bill. Besides, I haven't noticed myself sprouting any wings."

"Oberon didn't have wings," she retorted. "And you very much resemble the painting of him my mother has at the palace."

"I'm sure that's just a coincidence."

"Well, I'm sure the Guardian of Time can clear it all up," she insisted.

But the dragon was already standing up.

"It's time for me to go now," he explained.

"But I still have a question," asked Tom a bit petulantly, after his argument with Gwendolyn. "What happened to all the people in New York? They aren't here; I've gone looking . . ."

"Oh, I kin answer that," Roscoe assured him. The dragon smiled and started away.

Samantha patted Tony on the arm, got up, and followed. She wasn't sure he'd acknowledge her after his dismissal to the group, but she had to try. As she headed after him, she could hear Roscoe behind her, explaining to the group that New York and its people had not gone anywhere; that the Tenth Kingdom (as it was now being called) had merely been superimposed upon the world in which New York was located, and that with the breaking of the curse, the superposition was removed - and that the New Yorkers who were not involved would have noticed nothing unusual happening.

When they reached the castle courtyard, the dragon turned and looked at her.

"I just wondered," she began, "why you appeared to me? Your involvement with Virginia and Wolf I understand, but why me? I have nothing to do with this kingdom or the curse on it. Is there some other reason?"

He smiled. "Nothing you need to worry about," he told her. "Though you may work it out for yourself." The area grew hazy, as if a mist were moving into the three-walled enclosure. When she blinked, the man was gone, and a great dragon seemed to tower over her. He spread his rain-colored wings and began to disappear from view, though not into the sky.

"You're doing just fine," she heard in her mind before he vanished entirely, leaving the courtyard abruptly clear of the moisture she'd been certain was there only a moment before. Shrugging her shoulders, she started back towards the group, where Tony waited for her, flanked by his daughter and son-in-law, and holding his new grandchild. _They've all fulfilled their destinies,_ she thought, _at least so far._ Tony looked up and smiled as she got within view. Behind them, she saw Roscoe wink at her. She stopped and glanced up at the tall, singular mountain peak that hovered over them, imagining she saw something with wide, iridescent wings circling in the sky above it, bank and disappear from view. Then she smiled and went forward to fulfill her own destiny.

THE END


End file.
